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Focusing on late nineteenth- and twentieth-century stories of detection, policing, and espionage by British and South Asian writers, Yumna Siddiqi presents an original and compelling exploration of the cultural anxieties created by imperialism. She suggests that while colonial writers use narratives of intrigue to endorse imperial rule, postcolonial writers turn the generic conventions and topography of the fiction of intrigue on its head, launching a critique of imperial power that makes the repressive and emancipatory impulses of postcolonial modernity visible. Siddiqi devotes the first part of her book to the colonial fiction of Arthur Conan Doyle and John Buchan, in which the British regime's preoccupation with maintaining power found its voice. The rationalization of difference, pronouncedly expressed through the genre's strategies of representation and narrative resolution, helped to reinforce domination and, in some cases, allay fears concerning the loss of colonial power. In the second part, Siddiqi argues that late twentieth-century South Asian writers also underscore the state's insecurities, but unlike British imperial writers, they take a critical view of the state's authoritarian tendencies. Such writers as Amitav Ghosh, Michael Ondaatje, Arundhati Roy, and Salman Rushdie use the conventions of detective and spy fiction in creative ways to explore the coercive actions of the postcolonial state and the power dynamics of a postcolonial New Empire. Drawing on the work of leading theorists of imperialism such as Edward Said, Frantz Fanon, and the Subaltern Studies historians, Siddiqi reveals how British writers express the anxious workings of a will to maintain imperial power in their writing. She also illuminates the ways South Asian writers portray the paradoxes of postcolonial modernity and trace the ruses and uses of reason in a world where the modern marks a horizon not only of hope but also of economic, military, and ecological disaster.

A STRIKING NUMBER OF CHARACTERS in Arthur Conan Doyle's detective stories who return to England after a sojourn in the colonies have an outlandish aspect. One, a contorted and bilious ex-soldier, owns a pet Indian mongoose. Another has lost a leg to a crocodile in the Ganges and has a poison-toting Andaman Islander in tow. A third keeps a fiendish hound and passes his South American wife off as his sister. A fourth returns from South Africa with a “blanched” face and a furtive manner. Many of these returned colonials are portrayed as menacing, and their presence in England precipitates a crisis, either a crime or a mysterious tragedy. In actual fact, return from the colonies to the metropole was a routine phenomenon, and returned colonials were familiar figures on the metropolitan landscape. Why does Doyle depict the phenomenon of return from Empire as so problematic if it was in fact quite commonplace?

Edward Said is best known for his examination of representations of the Orient in European literature–representations that, he argues, legitimated colonial rule. While he takes a critical view of orientalist representations, he at the same time identifies himself as a scholar in the tradition of humanism. This article examines Said’s complex relationship to humanism, and his attempt to articulate a new humanism that moves beyond parochialism and relates to what he called “secular criticism.” It ends with an analysis of his late work, in which he affirms the need for a critical humanism in the face of the alienating effects of modernity and the resurgence of imperialism.

Edward Said is best known for his examination of representations of the Orient in European literature-representations that, he argues, legitimated colonial rule. While he takes a critical view of orientalist representations, he at the same time identifies himself as a scholar in the tradition of humanism. This article examines Said's complex relationship to humanism, and his attempt to articulate a new humanism that moves beyond parochialism and relates to what he called \"secular criticism.\" It ends with an analysis of his late work, in which he affirms the need for a critical humanism in the face of the alienating effects of modernity and the resurgence of imperialism. / يُعْرَف إدوارد سعيد ﺑﺘﺤﻠﻴﻠﻪ لتمثيلات الشرق في الأدب الأوروبي، وهي ﺗﻤﺜﻴﻼﺕ يراها أعطت شرعية للحكم الكولونيالي٠ وفي الوقت الذي يتخذ فيه موقفاﹰ نقدياﹰ من التمثيلات الاستشراقية، نراه في ذات الوقت يتماﻫﻰ كأكاديمي مع التراث ذي النزعة الإنسانية٠ يتناول هذا المقال علاقة سعيد المرﻛّﺑﺔ بهذه الفلسفة الإنسانية ومحاولته في التعبير عن نزعة إنسانية تتخطى ضيق الأﻓﻖ وتتميز بالتحرر الفعلي وترتبط بمفهومه ﻟ\"النقد الدنيوي\"٠ ينتهي المقال بتحليل لأعمال سعيد في المرحلة الأخيرة والتي يٶكد فيها الحاجة لإنسانية نقدية في وجه ﺍﻵﺛﺎﺭ الموحشة للتطور العصري والإمبريالية المنبعثة من جديد٠‬