Places of Mind: A Life of Edward Said

By Timothy Brennan

'An intimate portrait ... Critical, generous and heartfelt' Ahdaf Soueif, Guardian
'An intriguing account of an alluring but evasive character' Daily Telegraph

Drawing on extensive archival sources and hundreds of interviews, Timothy Brennan's Places of Mind is the first comprehensive biography of Said, one of the most controversial and celebrated intellectuals of the 20th century. In Brennan's masterful work, Said, the pioneer of post-colonial studies, a tireless champion for his native Palestine, and an erudite literary critic, emerges as a self-doubting, tender, and eloquent advocate of literature's dramatic effects on politics and civic life.

Places of Mind charts the intertwined routes of Said's intellectual development, revealing him as a study in opposites: a cajoler and strategist, a New York intellectual with a foot in Beirut, an orchestra impresario in Weimar and Ramallah, a raconteur on national television, a Palestinian negotiator at the State Department, and an actor in films in which he played himself. Brennan traces the Arab influences of Said's thinking along with his tutelage under Lebanese statesmen, off-beat modernist auteurs, and New York literati, as Said grew into a scholar whose influential writings changed the face of university life forever. With both intimidating brilliance and charm, Said turned these resources into a groundbreaking counter-tradition of radical humanism, set against the backdrop of techno-scientific dominance and religious war. With unparalleled clarity, Said gave the humanities a new authority in the age of Reaganism that continues today.

Drawing on the testimonies of family, friends, students, and antagonists alike, and aided by FBI files, unpublished writing, and Said's drafts of novels and personal letters, Places of Mind captures Said's intellectual breadth and influence in an unprecedented, intimate, and compelling portrait of one of the great minds of the twentieth century.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Release date: Mar 18, 2021
• ISBN: 9781526614636

Reviews for Places of Mind

[pomo58 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Places of Mind: A Life of Edward Said by Timothy Brennan is a fascinating look at what helped to make Said the person, and thus the intellectual, he was. Place is an idea that permeates Said's work, whether geographical, of the mind, or the intersection of the two. While much thought is abstract how a person frames those abstract concepts is often influenced by where they have been. Again, this can mean where one has physically lived or the mental journeys one has taken. Brennan takes us through Said's life with an eye toward the physical places he lived and worked as well as the places of the mind that he journeyed, both with his own mentors and later when he was a mentor to many.While many readers, especially as time moves on from his popular press writings, may only be familiar with a couple of his works, this biography will hopefully lead the reader to read more of his writing. I might suggest the revised edition of The Selected Works of Edward Said, 1966-2006 that was published in early 2019. It has a nice selection from all of his major works as well as a nice cross section of his various types of writing.Whether one agreed or disagreed with some of Said's positions, I think most would agree that he tried to be equitable and consistent in his assessments. This book will help you to better understand why he held many of the views he did.Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.