Conor McCarthy teaches at Maynooth University, Ireland. He is the author of The Cambridge Introduction to Edward Said (2010).
The Palestinian writer Edward Said wasn’t merely an intellectual who took brave political stands. Said’s whole approach to his work should be a model for politically engaged scholarship that doesn’t get bogged down in the thickets of academic culture.
While many liberals agitate furiously against any boycott of Israeli universities, few pay attention to the ways in which academic freedom is already severely curtailed in Palestine.