Author

IRRERA Orazio

Orazio Irrera is a philosopher (University of Pisa-University of Paris VIII) ; his research concerns postcolonial studies and the thought of Edward Saïd. His PhD treats of "Power and historical narration in postcolonial studies" (Potere e narrazione storica negli studi postcoloniali. Su Edward Said).

Articles

Edward Said's Humanism

Orazio IRRERA

11 October 2009

It is a well-known fact that Edward Said was a thinker who paid particularly close attention to the political effects of representation, and he has provided important tools for analysing both the mechanisms employed in constructing images with strong Eurocentric and ‘mono-cultural’ connotations, and narratives linked to liberation and the demand for recognition on the part of oppressed and de-centralised political subjectivities. One might even venture to claim that his critical analysis focuses primarily on those culturally and politically sensitive shifts wherein, somehow or other, the problem arises of translating a cultural, political or linguistic otherness from one horizon of meaning to another.