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The Space of the Intellectual: Displacement in Edward Said, Marc Auges, and Jacques Ranciere
by Cristos Hadjiyiannis
Issue date: 12/1/08 Section: Fall 2008
1 The lecture was the third of a series of six Reith Lectures delivered for the BBC. It was published first in The Independent on July 8, 1993, p. 16, and reprinted in Representations of the Intellectual: The 1993 Reith Lectures (London: Vintage. 1994), p. 36.
For Said, 'exile' describes 'the state of never being fully adjusted, always feeling outside the chatty, familiar world inhabited by natives…tending to avoid and even dislike
the trappings of accommodation and national well-being.' Said continues:
Exile for the intellectual in this metaphysical sense is restles-
sness, movement, constantly being unsettled, and unsettling others. You cannot go back to some earlier and perhaps more stable condition of being at home; and, alas, you can never fully
arrive, be at one with your new home or situation (RI 38).
Ultimately, this 'dislocation' becomes for the intellectual 'not only a style of thought but also a new, if temporary, habitation' (RI 39). Said's definition of 'exile' serves to distinguish
between the uncritical 'intellectual' who is 'beset and overwhelmed by the rewards
of accommodation, yea-saying, settling in', and the 'detached' intellectual who, by choosing to exist in some state of 'exilic displacement', is able to maintain the crucial critical awareness that sets her apart from the common consensus (RI 46). This second kind of intellectual has a marginal existence; displaced and dislocated, she is never fixed to one point of reference or one particular place. As Said puts it, the 'exiled' intellectual
is never living 'on land' (RI 44), the negation of the proposition emphasising further the 'unsettledness' which is the intellectual's defining characteristic. This claim, however, should not be taken as suggesting that the intellectual exists like a 'free-floating'
entity in some exquisite, ideal, realm. On the contrary, as Said stresses, 'no one is free of attachments and sentiments' (RI 47). Indeed, existing outside the 'chatty' world is as much insufficient for critical intellectual activity as is wholly embracing the 'familiar'
For Said, 'exile' describes 'the state of never being fully adjusted, always feeling outside the chatty, familiar world inhabited by natives…tending to avoid and even dislike
the trappings of accommodation and national well-being.' Said continues:
Exile for the intellectual in this metaphysical sense is restles-
sness, movement, constantly being unsettled, and unsettling others. You cannot go back to some earlier and perhaps more stable condition of being at home; and, alas, you can never fully
arrive, be at one with your new home or situation (RI 38).
Ultimately, this 'dislocation' becomes for the intellectual 'not only a style of thought but also a new, if temporary, habitation' (RI 39). Said's definition of 'exile' serves to distinguish
between the uncritical 'intellectual' who is 'beset and overwhelmed by the rewards
of accommodation, yea-saying, settling in', and the 'detached' intellectual who, by choosing to exist in some state of 'exilic displacement', is able to maintain the crucial critical awareness that sets her apart from the common consensus (RI 46). This second kind of intellectual has a marginal existence; displaced and dislocated, she is never fixed to one point of reference or one particular place. As Said puts it, the 'exiled' intellectual
is never living 'on land' (RI 44), the negation of the proposition emphasising further the 'unsettledness' which is the intellectual's defining characteristic. This claim, however, should not be taken as suggesting that the intellectual exists like a 'free-floating'
entity in some exquisite, ideal, realm. On the contrary, as Said stresses, 'no one is free of attachments and sentiments' (RI 47). Indeed, existing outside the 'chatty' world is as much insufficient for critical intellectual activity as is wholly embracing the 'familiar'
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posted 12/17/09 @ 10:24 AM EST
I think that this lectire is very informative.
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