Timothy Miles Brennan (born 1953) is a cultural theorist, professor of literature, public speaker, and activist. He is known for his work on American imperialism, the political role of intellectuals, Afro-Latin music, and the problem of the "human" and the humanities in an age of technoscience.[1]
He is an early theorist of cosmopolitanism and an oppositional voice within postcolonial studies who has challenged the prevailing trends of postmodernism and poststructuralist theory.[2] He has also carried on, while adapting, the intellectual leads of Edward Said, including the radical force of humanism, the poetic sociology of thinkers like Ibn Khaldun, Cola di Rienzo, and Giambattista Vico, and the generative role of Marxism in anti-colonial thought and practice.[3]
Two of his best-known books are Wars of Position: The Cultural Politics of Left and Right (2006) and Places of Mind: A Life of Edward Said (2021), which won the Palestine Book Award in 2021.[4]