Edward Said's Concept of Exile: Identity and Cultural Migration in the Middle East

285 Pages·2017·8.936 MB·English

by  Rehnuma Sazzad

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Rehnuma Sazzad is a research associate at the Centre for Cultural, Literary
and Postcolonial Studies (CCLPS) at the School of Oriental and African
Studies (SOAS). Her book Language and Nationalism in the Decolonized
World is forthcoming and she has published various book chapters as well as
articles in South Asian Cultural Studies, Interventions: Journal of Postcolonial
Studies, Interdisciplinary Literary Studies and Middle Eastern Studies. She
completed a PhD in Literary and Cultural Studies at Nottingham Trent
University and was awarded MAs from both the University of Manchester
and the University of Dhaka.
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‘An important contribution to the growing field on the history and criti-
cism of Arab intellectual thought’.
Anastasia Valassopoulos, Senior Lecturer in World Literatures,
University of Manchester
‘A thoughtful study of the experience of exile among Arab intellectuals in
the twentieth century. Sazzad’s provocative perspective places Edward Said
as the defining figure whose ideas allow us to recognise that Arab writ-
ers and film makers are embedded in historical experiences that fall well
beyond the boundaries of their national traditions.’
Robert J. C. Young, Silver Professor of English and Comparative
Literature, New York University
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EDWARD

SAID’S
CONCEPT
OF EXILE
Identity and Cultural Migration
in the Middle East
REHNUMA SAZZAD
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Published in 2017 by
I.B.Tauris & Co. Ltd
London • New York
www.ibtauris.com
Copyright © 2017 Rehnuma Sazzad
The right of Rehnuma Sazzad to be identified as the author of this work has
been asserted by the author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part
thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or
transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Every attempt has been made to gain permission for the use of the images
in this book. Any omissions will be rectified in future editions.
References to websites were correct at the time of writing.
Written Culture and Identity 6
ISBN: 978 1 78453 687 9
eISBN: 978 1 78672 260 7
ePDF: 978 1 78673 260 6
A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
A full CIP record is available from the Library of Congress
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: available
Typeset by Newgen
Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY
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Pundit Binod Bihari Acharya &
Professor Fakrul Alam
– My insignificant Gurudakkhina
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Contents

List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgements xi
Introduction 1
1 Exile and Intellectual Practice 17
Said and the executive view of exile 22
Said’s explorations of exile 28
2 Middle Eastern Artists as Exilic Intellectuals 45
The reflection of Said’s ideas in contemporary Arab
literature and film 50
The Arab artists and exilic intellectual practice 88
3 Exile as Resistance 93
Resistance against supremacist ideologies 97
Resistance as an emancipatory project 121
4 The Place of Writing in Exile 141
Adornian model: ‘Happy with the idea of unhappiness’ 142
Auerbachian model: cultivating ‘the pleasures of exile’ 156
‘The last Jewish intellectual’: Saidian legacy 167
5 Exile in the Contexts of Postcolonialism and
Postmodernism 187
Nationalism and voyage in: postcolonialism in
perspective 191
Postmodernism and the exilic stance on established
narratives 207
Contrapuntal rather than postcolonial or postmodern
criticism 220
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viii
Contents
Conclusion 235
Notes 241
Bibliography 243
Index 261
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List of Illustrations

Ill.1: Salah Ad-D in: the peaceful progression of the
Hajj pilgrims 196
Ill.2: Salah Ad-D in: the technical display of bloodshed to
reduce the details of violence 196
Ill.3: Prodigal Son: the clown representing the prevalent
grotesquery 200
Ill.4: Prodigal Son: hyper- realistic projection of survival 201
Ill.5: Salah Ad-D in: the trials of Louise and Acre’s Governor 203
Ill.6: Alexandria… New York: imaginary rendering of
Yehia’s first view of Ginger 214
Ill.7: Alexandria… Why?: Yehia’s Arabic rendition of a
speech given by Hamlet 229
Ill.8: Alexandria Again and Forever: an exasperated Yehia
with Amr 232
Misr International Films own all images, which are included in the book
with their kind permission.
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