Edward Said and the Politics of Worldliness: toward a “Rendezvous of Victory”

This essay addresses both the nature of what it means to be a public intellectual and the politics such an understanding would entail by examining the work of the late Edward Said. Said embodied both a particular kind of politics and a specific notion of how intellectuals should engage public life. The author takes up these issues by providing a critical commentary on the relevance of Said’s notion of wakefulness and how it both shapes his …