The Legacies of Edward W. Said in Comparative Literature
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12888678 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Robert J C Young (0000-0003-1754-2642, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2010 |
| Volume | 7 |
| Issue | 2-3 |
| Pages | 357-366 |
| Publication date | 2010-08-30 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Comparative Critical Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1744-1854 • E-ISSN: 1750-0109 |
| Publisher | Edinburgh University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.3366/ccs.2010.0018 |
| OpenAlex | W2090344531 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 3 |
Edward Said is discussed in many contexts but it is not so often that he is considered as a comparatist – even though it is widely claimed on the internet that he won the Rene Wellek Prize of the American Comparative Literature Association, a prize given for ‘outstanding work in the field of literary and cultural theory’.1 However, the ACLA has no record of his ever having won this prize. Someone at some point seems to have confused the ACLA’s Wellek Prize with the information that Said’s book,Musical Elaborations, was originally given as the ReneWellek lectures at the University of California, Irvine, in 1989. The prize and the lecture series named after Wellek are completely unrelated; nevertheless the ‘fact’ of Said’s winning the ACLA prize has been repeated ever since. So are myths and misrepresentations perpetuated from text to text rather than from verification or direct contact with the real – thus neatly proving the very kernel of Said’s own argument in Orientalism. In what ways was Said a comparatist and what was his contribution to Comparative Literature? Said’s background was certainly comparativist: his PhD on Joseph Conrad (later published as Joseph Conrad and the
Art · Art history · Literature · Mythology · Orientalism · Theology · Folklore, Mythology, and Literature Studies · Joseph Conrad and Literature · Philosophy · Themes in Literature Analysis
| Highly cited | No |
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