On Salon today, a review of a book by Robert Irwin: _Dangerous Knowledge: Orientalism and Its Discontents_. Salient quote: "Irwin maintains that Said's thesis is false, the arguments he made for it dishonest, distorted and weak, and his theoretical framework self-contradictory and evasive. He charges that Said engaged in a counterfactual rewriting of history, attacking figures from earlier eras because they did not say or do what Said thought they should have. Said's entire project, in his view, is 'a work of malignant charlatanry in which it is difficult to distinguish honest mistakes from wilful misrepresentations.'"
The article holds Irwin up as a bonafide scholar in the field (and thus touts the book as a major reimagining): "Irwin teaches at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, has written on Arabic literature and art, and is the Middle East editor of the Times Literary Supplement." Sounds credible, though "written on Arabic literature and art"? That's a little weird. I've written on nudists and forest porn and am no expert in sexuality...Still, the book sounds like it could be important. Anybody else heard anything about it?
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