PLACES OF MIND

As a graduate student at Columbia in the early 1980s, humanities professor Brennan came to know Palestinian American scholar, cultural critic, and activist Edward Said (1935-2003), whose suave urbanity and intellectual complexities he admirably captures in a sharply incisive portrait. Drawing on abundant archival sources, Said’s hefty FBI file, his published and unpublished works, and hundreds of interviews, Brennan, who remained Said’s friend until his death, traces the evolution of a boldly transformative, controversial thinker, considered to be the inventor of post-colonial studies. Born in Jerusalem, Said grew up in Cairo in a household characterized by “old-world opulence.” He came to the U.S. when he was 15; after boarding school in Massachusetts, he went on to Princeton and Harvard. Indecisive about pursuing a career in music (he was an accomplished pianist), medicine, or business, he opted for literature, guided by mentors such as R.P. Blackmur at Princeton and Harry Levin at Harvard. In 1963, Said joined Columbia’s English department, where among his colleagues were “the school’s resident ironist Freudian,” Lionel Trilling, and Fred Dupee, “a tweedy iconoclast, and so just right for Said’s similar desire to be an antinomian fit for the Ivy League.” Soon, Said found a role among New York intellectuals, writing for prominent journals and taking upon himself the “task of mapping out an indigenous Arab culture, politics, and aesthetics.” Brennan closely examines the literary, philosophical, and political thinkers who shaped Said’s ideas as well as the turbulent political events that informed his understanding of the phrase “the politics of literature.” By the late 1970s, Said was a media star, making the case that Islamophobia had a significant influence on U.S. foreign policy. His outspoken support of Palestine subjected him to fierce threats. “Apart from the president of Columbia,” Brennan notes, “only Said’s office had bulletproof windows and a buzzer that would send a signal directly to campus security."