Edward Said and Michel Foucault: Affinities and Dissonances

Abstract

Edward Said played a key role in introducing Foucault's work to academics in the United States. While this initial appreciation of Foucault's thought was also reflected in his own work, it was not to last, however. Said's growing disenchantment with Foucault's thinking is reflected in the many essays he wrote and the interviews he gave over the years following the publication of Orientalism. At the same time, while Said's reflections point to his reasons for rejecting a Foucaultian approach to texts and the world, they also reveal a number of misunderstandings regarding Foucault's purpose. Said would eventually rectify these misperceptions and offer an eloquent and succinct analysis of Foucault's contribution to contemporary critical theory in the last essay he wrote on the French thinker.