Susan Fraiman, “Jane Austen and Edward Said: Gender, Culture, and Imperialism”

In this essay Susan Fraiman critiques the influential analysis of Mansfield Park that Edward Said puts forward in his book Culture and Imperialism (1993). She argues that Said’s view of Austen as a “flatly conservative figure” diminishes and misreads the author and her work. Fraiman reexamines Said’s argument in contrast with her own reading of Mansfield Park to demonstrate what she sees as the “gender politics behind his postcolonial project,” in which the feminine remains “an essentially devalued category.”

Susan Fraiman, “Jane Austen and Edward Said: Gender, Culture, and Imperialism”