Orientalism was written with almost no institutional support or external encouragement.

Evidence

It was (and still is) the only book that I wrote as one continuous gesture, from research, to several drafts, to final version, each following the other without interruption or serious distraction. With the exception of a wonderfully civilized and relatively burdenless year spent as a Fellow at the Stanford Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (1975–6), I had very little in the way of support or interest from the outside world. — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 831

Categorization

• QUESTION: How did the book’s reception change given its marginal origin? Worth comparing with other foundational critical-theory texts that began outside mainstream institutions.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 831
• XREF: connects to: Orientalism operates as a discourse with material institutional support — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 52
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Orientalism operates as a discourse with material institutional support — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 52

Broader Connections

• Orientalism operates as a discourse with material institutional support #complicates (0.78) — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 52