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"The Politics of the Classroom Are Not the Politics of the World": An Unpublished Speech by Edward W. Said
- Philosophy and Literature
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 44, Number 2, October 2020
- pp. 380-394
- 10.1353/phl.2020.0028
- Article
- Additional Information
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Abstract:
The famous postcolonial literary critic Edward W. Said has become a symbol of academic activism. Yet Said was militantly opposed to professors who engaged in political advocacy in the classroom. This essay explores the apparent contradiction by examining a previously unpublished paper by Said on the relationship between politics and literature. I compare Said's arguments against political advocacy in the classroom to the ideas of Stanley Fish and Max Weber on academic freedom and responsibility.