This Earthly World: Edward Said, the praxis of secular humanisms and situated cosmopolitanisms

Abstract

This essay unearths the educational and socio-political implications of Edward W. Said's work for our understanding of what a secular humanism might mean in the highly charged atmosphere of the post-Cold War and September 11 discourses that have pervaded the USA and, to varying degrees, other parts of the world. It asks what it means to move beyond both corporate and neo-liberal notions of “global citizenship” into more robust communities of affiliation, dialogue, and democratic participation? How does Edward Said's work inform the praxis of democratic and critical secular humanism? Learning to move contrapuntally out of place, beyond narrowing categorical identity politics that divide humanity into the “us” and the “them,” the paper shows both what is promising and worth challenging as educators, scholars, and intellectuals of this “earthly world.”

Notes

1. There are notable exceptions: see Singh and Greenlaw (1998), as well as Singh (2004a), among others.

2. See Singh and Greenlaw (1998) for some excellent curricular examples of contrapuntal readings and pedagogies in the context of Anglo-centric and Pacific–Asian relations and exchanges. Rizvi (2003) provided some post-9/11 examples.

3. For more on notions of “worldliness” and a lucid critique of cosmopolitanism see Timothy Brennan (1997).