A scholar’s decades inside a field he critiques shapes the character of its critique.

Evidence

Unlike most commentators addressing the problem of Orientalism and other forms of knowledge, I come to the present project from within the field of Orientalism, having written in it and about it for nearly four decades. In some strong sense, it seems to me that most issues I have written about throughout this period, whether in the legal, historical, or philosophical fields, have been a series of engagements that are woven together around a single thread, despite the sometimes rather dissimilar materials and varied scholarly problems I have studied. — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 7

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the insider-critic position of scholars like T. J. Clark in art history and the methodological self-positioning common to genre-boundary works. — connects to: A scholar’s worldview shapes which subjects and methods they choose, not just their conclusions; A professor’s embodied habits can undercut their stated critical politics — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as…, 264