Edward Said became an academic rock star through his book Orientalism (1978), an attack on the conviction that scholarship results from rigorous, apolitical research rather than the adoption of trendy, nihilistic attitudes that deny the legitimacy of Western culture. Writing at American Thinker for Campus Watch, A.J. Caschetta asks if UC Berkeley philosopher and anti-Israel activist Judith Butler is the new Edward Said:
Of all the non-Middle East specialists writing on the Middle East, few have been as prolific or as indecipherable as Judith Butler. More than an academic, she has become a pop culture figure. In an age of identity politics, Butler's identity as a Marxist, feminist, lesbian practitioner of critical theory who writes prolifically about gender and transgenderism have made her among the most interviewed active college professors. But her anti-Israel advocacy has made her a star, and a possible successor to the late Edward Said, another academic whose fame rests more on tendentious scholarship and agitprop than rigorous, objective research.
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