The Anti-Essentialism of Saidian Thought

Abstract

Going by the widespread and diverse reception of Orientalism it is now generally accepted in the academic circles that Edward Said is a complex phenomenon - an intellectual enigma who drenched his thought in contemporary philology yet held on to his own premises. As an engaged intellectual he was passionately committed to the issue of the role of the intellectual literary critic in the betterment of the human condition globally, and viewed the "abdication of the social involvement by those in a position to know or do better as one of the contemporary forms of la trahison des clercs" ("The treason of the intellectuals"; Williams xiv).