I have considered Edward Said’s work at length on various occasions in the past, concerning problems of nationalism or comparative literature, Theodor Adorno, Jean Genet, or music, while more recently Said’s concept and practice of secular criticism, which underlies the framework of this essay as well, for reasons that will become apparent at the end.1 But on this occasion I want to focus my remarks on Orientalism as such, not only because this is the proper celebratory gesture but also because, at the dire historical moment we inhabit, the problems posed by this remarkable book are more trenchant than ever. This historical fact, in itself — bearing, that is, the full force of an unknown future contingent on this present — poses an important political but also methodological problem.
