Unsettling the World

Jeanne Morefield synthesizes Palestinian American theorist and cultural critic Edward Saids critical humanism as a conceptual approach for addressing crises in contemporary global politics that demands reflection about historical context and the nature of the collective public before considering solutions to perceived problems. Saids approach to humanistic inquiry speaks directly to the way scholars of international ethics who speak from a liberal internationalist perspective react to global crises by fixating on the international status quo, often advocating global order for global orders sake. In the process, Saids humanism transforms the very idea of what it means to theorize global ethics in a postcolonial age and offers a clarifying way to navigate through foreign policy discussions with conflicting interest groups and ideologies.