Said’s Palestine writings endure while his Islamicist book fails

Evidence

Said’s interventions since the initial publication of Orientalism have doubtless been prolific and diverse. The Question of Palestine and Covering Islam, as they came in quick succession thereafter, were explicitly conceived as volumes in a series inaugurated with Orientalism. After the Last Sky and Blaming the Victims, which came some years later, may also be considered as parts of that same integrated œuvre. Surrounding this impressive array of books are essays, articles and reviews on cognate themes in a great many periodicals, political journals and newspapers, not to speak of unpublished interventions in scholarly conferences and public forums of various kinds, including very effective television appearances, so numerous that they could easily fill two or three volumes. About Orientalism I need not say more, and Covering Islam is undoubtedly Said’s most forgettable book, so defensive is it about Islamicist kinds of politics and Khomeiniite kinds of criminalities (only after the sentencing of Salman Rushdie did Said begin to take public note of the terror which had by then enveloped tens of thousands within Iran). By contrast, the writings which deal directly with Palestine constitute not only the most enduring part of Said’s work but also, by any standards, the most persuasive insertion of a national-liberation struggle into the American imagination, which is otherwise substantially formed by Zionist-colonial presumptions. … Foucault’s eagerness not to fall into Marxist economism causes him to obliterate the role of classes, the role of economics, the role of insurgency and rebellion in the societies he discusses…. The problem is that Foucault’s use of the term pouvoir moves around too much, swallowing up every obstacle in its path, … obliterating change and mystifying its microphysical sovereignty…. Foucault’s history is ultimately textual or rather textualized; its mode is one for which Borges would have an affinity … they [his archaeologies] make not even a nominal allowance for emergent movements, and none for revolutions, counterhegemony, or historical blocs. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 371

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: The Palestine writings as ‘the most persuasive insertion of a national-liberation struggle into the American imagination, which is otherwise substantially formed by Zionist-colonial presumptions’ relates to my work on how narratives of identity and political struggle get inserted into dominant cultural frameworks.
• XREF: connects to: Said’s Palestine writings surpassed both Orientalism and Covering Islam in enduring power.

Related

• Said’s Palestine writings surpassed both Orientalism and Covering Islam in enduring power. (similarity 0.97)
• Said’s Orientalism was written from a perspective of personal loss and defeated national identity (similarity 0.80)
• Said’s work embodies the contradictions of the literary theory tradition (similarity 0.78)