Addendum

A quick addendum to my recent “post”:https://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/000738.html on bad academic writing; it turns out that “Steven Berlin Johnson”:http://www.stevenberlinjohnson.com/movabletype/archives/000103.html was a student of Said. Which is quite an interesting intellectual trajectory. Johnson recalls that Said

bq. was largely responsible — some might say to blame — for importing French cultural theory into the American intellectual scene, particularly Foucault, who obviously had a huge influence on Orientalism. But he always resisted the inane wordplay and self-absorption that characterized so much of American theory in the eighties and early nineties. He absolutely despised “radical theorists” like Judith Butler, for instance. I remember him bristling anytime someone used the word “discourse” in one of our seminars — and I remember thinking at the time that I had first starting using the word myself after reading Orientalism during my freshman year. … on his best days, he was the most charismatic man I’ve ever met in my life — handsome, stylish, impossibly articulate, and surprisingly willing to take a joke at his own expense. (I used to tease him about his being indirectly responsible for unleashing Butler on the world).