"The Politics of the Classroom Are Not the Politics of the World": An Unpublished Speech by Edward W. Said

The famous postcolonial literary critic Edward W. Said has become a symbol of academic activism. Yet Said was militantly opposed to professors who engaged in political advocacy in the classroom. This essay explores the apparent contradiction by examining a previously unpublished paper by Said on the relationship between politics and literature. I compare Said's arguments against political advocacy in the classroom to the ideas of Stanley Fish and Max Weber on academic freedom and responsibility.