
Places of Mind
A Life of Edward Said
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Narrated by:
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Timothy Andrés Pabon
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By:
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Timothy Brennan
About this listen
As someone who studied under Edward Said and remained a friend until his death in 2003, Timothy Brennan had unprecedented access to his thesis adviser's ideas and legacy. In this authoritative work, Said, the pioneer of postcolonial studies, a tireless champion for his native Palestine, and an erudite literary critic, emerges as a self-doubting, tender, eloquent advocate of literature's dramatic effects on politics and civic life.
Places of Mind reveals Said 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 on 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 melded these resources into a groundbreaking and influential countertradition 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, one that continues today.
©2021 Timothy Brennan (P)2021 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
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This landmark book, first published in 1978, remains one of the most influential books in the Social Sciences, particularly Ethnic Studies and Postcolonialism. Said is best known for describing and critiquing "Orientalism", which he perceived as a constellation of false assumptions underlying Western attitudes toward the East. In Orientalism Said claimed a "subtle and persistent Eurocentric prejudice against Arabo-Islamic peoples and their culture."
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We're lucky to have this on audio
- By Delano on 02-27-13
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BRAVO, AUDIBLE!! WE NEED MORE SAID!! REAL BOOKS!!
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exactly what I've been looking for
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- Unabridged
-
Overall
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Performance
-
Story
This landmark book, first published in 1978, remains one of the most influential books in the Social Sciences, particularly Ethnic Studies and Postcolonialism. Said is best known for describing and critiquing "Orientalism", which he perceived as a constellation of false assumptions underlying Western attitudes toward the East. In Orientalism Said claimed a "subtle and persistent Eurocentric prejudice against Arabo-Islamic peoples and their culture."
-
-
We're lucky to have this on audio
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By: Edward Said
-
Culture and Imperialism
- By: Edward Said
- Narrated by: Peter Ganim
- Length: 19 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A landmark work from the intellectually auspicious author of Orientalism, this book explores the long-overlooked connections between the Western imperial endeavor and the culture that both reflected and reinforced it. This classic study, the direct successor to Said's main work, is read by Peter Ganim ( Orientalism).
-
-
BRAVO, AUDIBLE!! WE NEED MORE SAID!! REAL BOOKS!!
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By: Edward Said
-
The Hundred Years' War on Palestine
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- Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi, Rashid Khalidi - introduction
- Length: 10 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Drawing on a wealth of untapped archival materials and the reports of generations of family members - mayors, judges, scholars, diplomats, and journalists - The Hundred Years' War on Palestine upends accepted interpretations of the conflict, which tend, at best, to describe a tragic clash between two peoples with claims to the same territory. Instead, Khalidi traces a hundred years of colonial war on the Palestinians, waged first by the Zionist movement and then Israel, but backed by Britain and the United States, the great powers of the age.
-
-
Thoroughly Researched and Evidence-Based, but...
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By: Rashid Khalidi
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- Unabridged
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Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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-
-
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-
Humanly Possible
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- Narrated by: Antonia Beamish
- Length: 14 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Humanism is an expansive tradition of thought that places shared humanity, cultural vibrancy, and moral responsibility at the center of our lives. For centuries, this worldview has inspired people to make their choices by principles of freethinking, intellectual inquiry, fellow feeling, and optimism. In this sweeping new history, Sarah Bakewell, herself a lifelong humanist, illuminates the very personal, individual, and, well, human matter of humanism and takes listeners on a grand intellectual adventure.
-
-
A glimmer of hope
- By RAY MONTECALVO on 04-14-23
By: Sarah Bakewell
-
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- Narrated by: Mark Williams
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- Unabridged
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Overall
-
Performance
-
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What listeners say about Places of Mind
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Sarah
- 02-14-24
The book is a lovely portrait of Said
This review is of the audio narration, not the book itself. Most if not all Arabic words were heavily butchered. People’s names mispronounced… it’s a little ironic… we couldn’t hire an Arabic speaker to read a book about the man who wrote Orientalism.
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- Ron
- 11-14-23
Great biography,
This biography of Said is particularly important in our time of Palestinian/Israeli conflict. I wish the reader had done a quick Wikipedia check to find out how to pronounce many of the names of the important scholars the book discusses such as Flaubert, Barthes, Louis Althusser, Marcuse and-jarringly- Cockburn.
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- Keith
- 04-17-21
Promise and peril of being a public intellectual
Brennan's biography of Edward Said is written through the prism of a former student's deep admiration for his mentor, yet it remains critical of his subject's ideas and motivations. Far from the exhaustive warts-and-all biography that is often the result of a writer becoming immersed in personal papers and extensive interviews, Brennan remains focused on Said's ideas. For the most part, Brennan dedicates himself to explaining and analyzing the cultural, political, and historical context which shaped Said's published work, not his private life. Dealing with the political complications of the Middle East throughout, Brennan also uses Said's story to chart the broader trajectory of academia since the 1960s. In doing so he asks critical questions about intellectual freedom, political efficacy, and the minefields that public intellectuals must navigate. The institutional history found here regarding Columbia University is especially informative. This book helps explain both Said's lasting influence and the ways in which his work continues to generate divided responses both in and out of the academy.
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- Phillip Straghalis
- 06-22-22
Extraordinary uniquely Palestinian
An extraordinary man we were lucky that he was Palestinian. He was our great intellect. A man who saw the world I head of his time. It is a fitting biography.
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