{{POV-check|date=December 2007}}{{POV-check|date=December 2007}}{{POV-check|date=December 2007}}{{POV-check|date=December 2007}}{{POV-check|date=December 2007}}{{POV-check|date=December 2007}}
Edward Wadie Saïd ({{pronEng|edward wædiːʕ sæʕiːd}} {{lang-ar|
إدوارد وديع سعيد}}, {{transl|ar|
Idwārd Wadīʿ Saʿīd}}; 1 November 1935 – 25 September 2003) was a
Palestinian American{{POV-check|date=December 2007}}{{POV-check|date=December 2007}}{{POV-check|date=December 2007}}{{POV-check|date=December 2007}}{{POV-check|date=December 2007}}{{POV-check|date=December 2007}}{{Infobox Ethnic group|image =...
literary theoristLiterary theory in a strict sense is the systematic study of the nature of literature and of the methods for analyzing literature. However, literary scholarship since the 19th century often includes—in addition to, or even instead of literary theory in the strict sense—considerations of...
,
cultural criticA cultural critic is a critic of a given culture, usually as a whole and typically on a radical basis. There is significant overlap with social criticism and social philosophers.-Terminology:...
, and an advocate for
PalestinianThe Palestinian people, also referred to as Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs , are an Arabic-speaking people with family origins in Palestine...
rights. He was University Professor of English and Comparative Literature at
Columbia UniversityColumbia University in the City of New York is a private university in the United States and a member of the Ivy League. Columbia's main campus lies in the Morningside Heights neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan, in New York City...
and a founding figure in
postcolonialismPostcolonialism is a specifically post-modern intellectual discourse that holds together a set of theories found among the texts and sub-texts of philosophy, film, political science and literature...
.
Robert FiskRobert Fisk is an English writer and journalist. Middle East correspondent of the The Independent, he has been based mainly in Beirut for more than 30 years....
described him as the Palestinians' "most powerful political voice."
Life
Said was born in
JerusalemJerusalem is the capital of Israel and its largest city in both population and area, with a population of 747,600 residents over an area of if disputed East Jerusalem is included...
(then in the British Mandate of Palestine) on November 1, 1935. His father, a US citizen with Protestant Palestinian origins, was a businessman and had served under General Pershing in
World War IWorld War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance...
. He moved to
CairoCairo is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab World. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a center of the region's political and cultural life...
in the decade before Edward's birth. His mother was born in
NazarethNazareth is the capital and largest city in the North District of Israel. Known as "the Arab capital of Israel," the population is made up predominantly of Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel...
, also of Protestant Christian Palestinian descent. His sister was the historian and writer
Rosemarie Said ZahlanRosemarie Said Zahlan was a Palestinian-American historian and writer on the Gulf states. She was a sister of Edward Said...
.
Said once referred to himself as a "
ChristianA Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic, religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, who Christians believe was the Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible, and the Son of God.The term "Christian" is also used adjectivally to...
wrapped in a
Muslim cultureIslamic culture is a term primarily used in secular academia to describe all cultural practices common to historically Islamic peoples. As the religion of Islam originated in 6th century Arabia, the early forms of Muslim culture were predominantly Arab...
":
With an unexceptionally ArabArab people or Arabs are an ethnic group whose members identify along linguistic, cultural or genealogical grounds...
family name like Said connected to an improbably British first name (my mother much admired the Prince of Wales in 1935, the year of my birth), I was an uncomfortably anomalous student all through my early years: a Palestinian going to school in Egypt, with an English first name, an American passport and no certain identity at all.
According to his autobiographical memoir,
Out of Place, Said lived "between worlds" in both
CairoCairo is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab World. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a center of the region's political and cultural life...
and
JerusalemJerusalem is the capital of Israel and its largest city in both population and area, with a population of 747,600 residents over an area of if disputed East Jerusalem is included...
until age 12. He attended the
AnglicanThe Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England, the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the oldest among the communion's thirty-eight independent national and regional churches...
St. George's AcademySt. George's School is a boys' school in East Jerusalem run by the Anglican Jerusalem diocese. It is located next to St. George's College, just outside the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem. The school was established in 1899....
in 1947 in Jerusalem. As the
Arab LeagueThe Arab League , officially called the League of Arab States , is a regional organization of Arab states in Southwest Asia, and North and Northeast Africa. It was formed in Cairo on March 22, 1945 with six members: Egypt, Iraq, Transjordan , Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Syria...
states declared war on Israel in 1947/
1948The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, known by Israelis as the War of Independence or War of Liberation and by Palestinians as the Catastrophe , was the first in a series of wars fought between the newly declared State of Israel and its Arab neighbours in the long-running Arab-Israeli conflict.The war...
, his family moved from the neighborhood of
TalbiyaTalbiya or Talbiyeh is an upscale neighborhood in Jerusalem, Israel, located between Rehavia and Katamon. It was built in the 1920s and 1930s on land purchased from the Greek Patriarchate...
in Jerusalem and returned to Cairo. In a
London Review of BooksThe London Review of Books is a fortnightly British literary and political magazine.The LRB was founded in 1979 during the year-long lock-out at The Times...
article Said gave a more detailed account of his upbringing.
I was born in Jerusalem and had spent most of my formative years there and, after 1948, when my entire family became refugeeUnder the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, a refugee is a person who owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted on account of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of their nationality,...
s, in Egypt. All my early education had, however, been in élite colonial schools, English public schools designed by the British to bring up a generation of Arabs with natural ties to Britain. The last one I went to before I left the Middle East to go to the United States was Victoria CollegeVictoria College, Alexandria, was founded in 1902 under the impetus of the recently ennobled Evelyn Baring, 1st Earl of Cromer of the Barings Bank, that was heavily invested in Egyptian stability. For years the British Consul-General was ex officio on the board of Victoria College...
in AlexandriaAlexandria , with a population of 4.1 million, is the second-largest city in Egypt, and is the country's largest seaport, serving about 80% of Egypt's imports and exports...
, a school in effect created to educate those ruling-class Arabs and Levantines who were going to take over after the British left. My contemporaries and classmates included King Hussein of Jordan, several Jordanian, Egyptian, SyriaSyria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south and Israel to the southwest....
n and Saudi boys who were to become ministers, prime ministers and leading businessmen, as well as such glamorous figures as Michel Shalhoub, head prefectPrefect is a magisterial title of varying definition....
of the school and chief tormentor when I was a relatively junior boy, whom everyone has seen on screen as Omar SharifOmar Sharif is an Egyptian actor who has starred in many Hollywood films. He is most famous for his roles in Doctor Zhivago, Funny Girl and Lawrence of Arabia...
.
In 1951, Said was expelled from Victoria College for being a "troublemaker", and was consequently sent by his parents to Mount Hermon School, a private college preparatory school in
MassachusettsThe Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. Most of its population of...
, where he recalls a "miserable" year of feeling "out of place". Said later reflected that the decision to send him so far away was heavily influenced by 'the prospects of deracinated people like us being so uncertain that it would be best to send me as far away as possible'. Despite this dissonance, Said did well at the Massachusetts boarding school often 'achieving the rank of either first or second in a class of about a hundred and sixty'.
Said earned a
Bachelor of ArtsBachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences or both....
, summa cum laude (1957) from
Princeton UniversityPrinceton University a private university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League and is considered one of the Colonial Colleges....
and a
Master of ArtsA Master of Arts is a postgraduate academic master degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is typically studied for in English, Fine Arts, History, Nursing, Humanities, Geography, Philosophy, Social Sciences or Theology and can be either fully-taught, research-based, or a...
(1960) and a Ph.D. (1964) from
Harvard UniversityHarvard University is a private university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1636 by the colonial Massachusetts legislature, Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and currently comprises ten separate academic units...
, where he won the
Bowdoin prizeThe Bowdoin Prize is a prestigious award given annually to Harvard University undergraduate and graduate students. It is considered among the highest academic commendations the University can bestow upon a student...
. He joined the faculty of
Columbia UniversityColumbia University in the City of New York is a private university in the United States and a member of the Ivy League. Columbia's main campus lies in the Morningside Heights neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan, in New York City...
in 1963 and served as Professor of English and Comparative Literature for several decades. In 1977, Said became the Parr Professor of English and
Comparative LiteratureComparative literature is critical scholarship dealing with the literature of two or more different linguistic, cultural or national groups...
at Columbia and subsequently became the Old Dominion Foundation Professor in the Humanities. In 1992, he attained the rank of University Professor, Columbia's most prestigious academic position. Professor Said also taught at Harvard,
Johns HopkinsThe Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university located in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Johns Hopkins also maintains full-time campuses elsewhere in Maryland, Washington, D.C., Italy, China, and Singapore...
, and
Yale UniversityYale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut, and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States. Yale has produced many notable alumni, including five...
. He was fluent in
EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that developed in England during the Anglo-Saxon era. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, and of the United States since the mid 20th century,...
,
FrenchFrench is a Romance language globally spoken by about 65 million people as a first language , by 50 million as a second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired foreign language, with significant speakers in 57 countries. Most native speakers of the language live in France,...
, and
ArabicArabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages such as Hebrew and the Neo-Aramaic languages. In terms of speakers, the Arabic macrolanguage is the largest member of the Semitic language family. It is spoken by more than 280 million people as...
. In 1999, after his earlier election to second vice president and following its succession policy, Said served as president of the
Modern Language AssociationThe Modern Language Association of America is the principal professional association in the United States for scholars of language and literature...
.
Said was bestowed with numerous honorary doctorates from universities around the world and twice received Columbia's Trilling Award and the Wellek Prize of the American Comparative Literature Association. In 1999, he won the inaugural Spinoza Lens Award for ethics. His autobiographical memoir
Out of Place won the 1999 New Yorker Prize for non-fiction. He was also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the
Royal Society of LiteratureThe Royal Society of Literature is the "senior literary organisation in Britain". It was founded in 1820 by King George IV, in order to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". The Society's first president was Thomas Burgess, who later became the Bishop of Salisbury...
, and the
American Philosophical SocietyThe American Philosophical Society is a discussion group founded in 1743 by Benjamin Franklin as an offshoot of his earlier club, the Junto...
.
Said's writing regularly appeared in
The Nation,
The GuardianThe Guardian is a British daily newspaper owned by the Guardian Media Group. Founded in 1821, it is unique among major British newspapers in being owned by a foundation .The Guardian Weekly, which circulates worldwide, provides a compact digest of four newspapers...
, the
London Review of BooksThe London Review of Books is a fortnightly British literary and political magazine.The LRB was founded in 1979 during the year-long lock-out at The Times...
,
Le Monde DiplomatiqueLe Monde diplomatique is a monthly publication offering analysis and opinion on politics, culture, and current affairs.Its articles are typically pieces of in depth and opinionated analysis....
,
CounterpunchCounterPunch is a bi-weekly newsletter published in the United States that covers politics in a manner its editors describe as "muckraking with a radical attitude"...
,
Al Ahram, and the pan-Arab daily
al-Hayat. He gave interviews alongside his good friend, fellow political activist, and colleague
Noam ChomskyAvram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, political activist, author, and lecturer. He is an Institute Professor and professor emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Chomsky is well known in the academic and scientific community as...
regarding US foreign policy for various independent radio programs.
Said also wrote a music criticism column for
The Nation magazine for many years. In 1999, he jointly founded the West-East Divan Orchestra with the Argentine-Israeli conductor and close friend
Daniel BarenboimDaniel Barenboim is an Argentinian-born pianist and conductor. He lives in Berlin and holds citizenship in Argentina, Israel, and Spain. He also holds a passport issued by the Palestinian Authority. Barenboim first came to prominence as a pianist but is now perhaps better known as a conductor...
. The orchestra is made up of musicians from Israel, Palestine, and the surrounding Arab countries.
Edward Said died at age 67 in the early morning of September 25, 2003, in
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
, after a decade-long battle with
chronic lymphocytic leukemiaB-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia , also known as chronic lymphoid leukemia , is the most common type of leukemia. Leukemias are abnormal and malignant neoplastic proliferations of the white blood cells . CLL involves a particular subtype of white blood cells, which is a lymphocyte called a B...
.
In November 2004,
Birzeit UniversityBirzeit University is a University located in the town of Birzeit near Ramallah. BZU is among the foremost tertiary educational institutes in the Palestinian territories and has played a significant role in the Palestinian political dialogue....
renamed its music school as the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music in his honor.
Orientalism
{{Main|Orientalism (book)}}
Said is best known for describing and critiquing "
OrientalismOrientalism is the imitation or depiction of aspects of Eastern cultures in the West by writers, designers and artists. An "Orientalist" may be a person engaged in these activities, but it is also the traditional term for any scholar of Oriental studies...
", which he perceived as a constellation of false assumptions underlying
WesternThe Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term that can have multiple meanings depending on its context...
attitudes toward the
EastThe Middle East is a region that spans southwestern Asia, southeastern Europe, and northeastern Africa. It has no clear boundaries, often used as a synonym to Near East, in opposition to Far East...
. In
OrientalismOrientalism is the 1978 book by Edward Said that has been highly influential in postcolonial studies.In the book, Said says that orientalism, especially the academic study of, and discourse, political and literary, about the Arabs, Islam, and the Middle East that primarily originated in...
(1978), Said claimed a "subtle and persistent
EurocentricEurocentrism is a term coined during the period of decolonization in the later 20th century to refer to the practice of viewing the world from a European perspective, with an implied belief, either consciously or subconsciously, in the preeminence of European culture...
prejudice against Arabo-Islamic peoples and their culture." He argued that a long tradition of false and romanticized images of
AsiaAsia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.6% of the earth's total surface area and with approximately 4 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population.Asia is traditionally defined as part of the...
and the
Middle EastThe Middle East is a region that spans southwestern Asia, southeastern Europe, and northeastern Africa. It has no clear boundaries, often used as a synonym to Near East, in opposition to Far East...
in
Western cultureWestern culture refers to cultures of European origin.The term "Western culture" is used very broadly to refer to a heritage of social norms, ethical values, traditional customs, religious beliefs, political systems, and specific artifacts and technologies...
had served as an implicit justification for
EuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus Mountains , and the Black Sea to the southeast...
and the US' colonial and imperial ambitions. Just as fiercely, he denounced the practice of Arab elites who
internalizedInternalization has different definitions depending on the field that the term is used in. Internalization is the opposite of externalization.- General :...
the US and British orientalists' ideas of
Arabic cultureArab culture is an inclusive term that draws together the common themes and overtones found in the Arabic-speaking cultures, especially those of the Middle-Eastern countries...
.
In 1980, Said criticized what he regarded as poor understanding of the Arab culture in the West:
{{cquote|
So far as the United States seems to be concerned, it is only a slight overstatement to say that
Moslems and Arabs are essentially seen as either oil suppliers or potential terroristsStereotypes of Arabs presented in Western culture and American culture have been historically and predominantly negative. Stereotypical representations of Arabs are often manifested in a society's media, literature, theater and other creative expressions, and often have adverse repercussions for...
. Very little of the detail, the human density, the passion of Arab-Moslem life has entered the awareness of even those people whose profession it is to report the
Arab worldThe Arab World refers to Arabic-speaking countries stretching from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Arabian Sea in the east, and from the Mediterranean Sea in the north to the Horn of Africa and the Indian Ocean in the southeast...
. What we have instead is a series of crude, essentialized caricatures of the Islamic world presented in such a way as to make that world vulnerable to military aggression.
|5=
The Nation}}
Main argument
Said asserts that much western study of Islamic civilization was political intellectualism bent on self-affirmation rather than objective study, a form of racism, and a tool of
imperialistImperialism, as defined by the dictionary of human geography, is “the creation and maintenance of an unequal economic, cultural and territorial relationship, usually between states and often in the form of an empire, based on domination and subordination.” Imperialism, in many ways, is described...
domination.
Orientalism had an impact on the fields of
literary theoryLiterary theory in a strict sense is the systematic study of the nature of literature and of the methods for analyzing literature. However, literary scholarship since the 19th century often includes—in addition to, or even instead of literary theory in the strict sense—considerations of...
,
cultural studiesCultural studies is an academic field which combines political economy, communication, sociology, social theory, literary theory, media theory, film/video studies, cultural anthropology, philosophy, museum studies and art history/criticism to study cultural phenomena in various societies...
and
human geography-Scope:Human geography broadly differs from physical geography in that it has a greater focus on studying intangible or abstract patterns surrounding human activity and is more receptive to qualitative research methodologies. It encompasses human, political, cultural, social and economic aspects of...
, and to a lesser extent on those of history and oriental studies. Taking his cue from the work of
Jacques DerridaJacques Derrida was a French philosopher born in Algeria, who is known as the founder of deconstruction. His voluminous work had a profound impact upon literary theory and continental philosophy...
and
Michel FoucaultMichel Foucault , born Paul-Michel Foucault , was a French philosopher, sociologist and historian. He held a chair at the Collège de France with the title "History of Systems of Thought," and also taught at the University of California, Berkeley.Foucault is best known for his critical studies of...
, and from earlier critics of western Orientalism such as
A. L. TibawiDr. Abdul Latif Tibawi was a Palestinian historian and educationalist. Born in Taybet El-Muthalath, near TulKarem, he was one of the earliest graduates of the Arabic College, Dar Al-Mu’allimin, in Jerusalem. He read history and Arabic literature at the American University of Beirut and later...
, Anouar Abdel-Malek,
Maxime RodinsonMaxime Rodinson was a French Marxist historian, sociologist and orientalist. He was the son of a Russian-Polish clothing trader and his wife who both died in the Auschwitz concentration camp. After studying oriental languages, he became a professor of Ethiopian at EPHE...
, and Richard William Southern, Said argued that Western writings on the Orient, and the perceptions of the East purveyed in them, are suspect, and cannot be taken at face value. According to Said, the history of European colonial rule and political domination over the East distorts the writings of even the most knowledgeable, well-meaning and sympathetic Western ‘Orientalists’ (a term that he transformed into a pejorative):
{{cquote|I doubt if it is controversial, for example, to say that an Englishman in
IndiaIndia, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal...
or Egypt in the later nineteenth century took an interest in those countries which was never far from their status in his mind as British colonies. To say this may seem quite different from saying that all academic knowledge about India and Egypt is somehow tinged and impressed with, violated by, the gross political fact – and yet
that is what I am saying in this study of Orientalism.
|4=
Orientalism 11}}
Said argued that the West had dominated the East for more than 2,000 years, since the composition of
The Persians by
AeschylusAeschylus was an ancient Greek playwright. He is often recognized as the father of tragedy, and is the earliest of the three Greek tragedians whose plays survive, the others being Sophocles and Euripides...
. Europe had dominated Asia politically so completely for so long that even the most outwardly objective Western texts on the East were permeated with a bias that even most Western scholars could not recognize. His contention was not only that the West has conquered the East politically but also that Western scholars have appropriated the exploration and interpretation of the Orient’s languages, history and culture for themselves. They have written Asia’s past and constructed its modern identities from a perspective that takes Europe as the norm, from which the "exotic", "inscrutable" Orient deviates.
Said concludes that Western writings about the Orient depict it as an irrational, weak, feminised "Other", contrasted with the rational, strong, masculine West, a contrast he suggests derives from the need to create "difference" between West and East that can be attributed to immutable "essences" in the Oriental make-up. In 1978, when the book was first published, with memories of the
Yom Kippur warThe Yom Kippur War, Ramadan War or October War , also known as the 1973 Arab-Israeli War and the Fourth Arab-Israeli War, was fought from October 6 to October 26, 1973, between Israel and a coalition of...
and the
OPECThe Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries is a cartel of twelve countries made up of Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela. OPEC has maintained its headquarters in Vienna since 1965, and hosts regular...
crisis still fresh, Said argued that these attitudes still permeated the Western media and academia. After stating the central thesis,
Orientalism consists mainly of supporting examples from Western texts.
Criticism
Orientalism and other works by Said have sparked a wide variety of controversy and criticism.
Ernest GellnerErnest André Gellner was a philosopher, a sociologist and a social anthropologist, cited as one of the world's "most vigorous intellectuals" and a "one-man crusade for critical rationalism," whose first book, Words and Things famously, and uniquely for a philosopher, prompted a leader in The...
argued that Said's contention that the West had dominated the East for more than 2,000 years was unsupportable, noting that until the late 17th century the
Ottoman EmpireThe Ottoman Empire or Ottoman State , also known by its contemporaries as the Turkish Empire or Turkey , was an empire that lasted from 1299 to November 1, 1922 The Ottoman Empire or Ottoman State (Ottoman Turkish: دَوْلَتِ عَلِیَّهِ عُثْمَانِیَّه Dawlet-il ʿAliyyat-il ʿOs̠māniyye, Modern Turkish:...
had posed a serious threat to Europe. Mark Proudman notes that Said had claimed that the
British EmpireThe British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom, that had originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height it was...
extended from Egypt to India in the 1880s, when in fact the Ottoman and Persian Empires intervened. Others argued out that even at the height of the imperial era, European power in the East was never absolute, and remained heavily dependent on local collaborators, who were frequently subversive of imperial aims. Another criticism is that the areas of the Middle East on which Said had concentrated, including Palestine and Egypt, were poor examples for his theory, as they came under direct European control only for a relatively short period in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These critics suggested that Said devoted much less attention to more apt examples, including the
British RajThe British Raj was the British colonial rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947; it can also refer to the period of dominion, and even the region under the rule...
in India, and Russia’s dominions in Asia, because Said was more interested in making political points about the Middle East.
Strong criticism of Said's critique of
Orientalism has come from academic Orientalists, including some of Eastern backgrounds.
Albert HouraniAlbert Habib Hourani was one of the most prominent scholars of Middle Eastern history for much of the second half of the 20th century....
,
Robert Graham IrwinRobert Graham Irwin is a British historian, novelist, and writer on Arabic literature.He read modern history at the University of Oxford, and did graduate research at SOAS. From 1972 he was a lecturer in Medieval History at the University of St. Andrews. He gave up the academic life in 1977, to...
,
Nikki KeddieNikki R. Keddie is an American professor of Eastern, Iranian, and women's history. She retired from the University of California, Los Angeles after 35 years of teaching...
,
Bernard LewisBernard Lewis, FBA is a British-American historian, Orientalist, and political commentator. He is the Cleveland E. Dodge Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University...
, and
Kanan MakiyaKanan Makiya is an Iraqi academic, who gained British nationality in 1982. He is the Sylvia K. Hassenfeld Professor of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at Brandeis University. Although he was born in Baghdad, he left Iraq to study architecture at M.I.T., later founding Makiya Associates in order...
address what Keddie retrospectively calls "some unfortunate consequences" of Said's
Orientalism on the perception and status of their scholarship. Bernard Lewis in particular was often at odds with Said following the publication of
Orientalism, in which Said singled out Lewis as a "perfect exemplification" of an "Establishment Orientalist" whose work "purports to be objective liberal scholarship but is in reality very close to being propaganda
against his subject material". Lewis answered with several essays in response, and was joined by other scholars, such as
Maxime RodinsonMaxime Rodinson was a French Marxist historian, sociologist and orientalist. He was the son of a Russian-Polish clothing trader and his wife who both died in the Auschwitz concentration camp. After studying oriental languages, he became a professor of Ethiopian at EPHE...
,
Jacques BerqueJacques Augustin Berque was a French Islamic scholar and sociologist. His expertise was the decolonisation of Algeria and Morocco.-Biography:Born of French parents in Molière, provincial Algeria, he was a pied-noir...
,
Malcolm KerrMalcolm Hooper Kerr was a political scientist and teacher who was an expert on Middle East politics. His best known book is The Arab Cold War; Gamal Abd al-Nasir and His Rivals, 1958-1970.-Early life:...
,
Aijaz AhmadAijaz Ahmad is a well-known Marxist literary theorist and political commentator based in India.Born in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India just before it gained independence from British rule, Aijaz Ahmad along with his parents migrated to Pakistan following partition. After his education he worked...
, and
William Montgomery WattWilliam Montgomery Watt was an Emeritus Professor in Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Edinburgh...
, who also regarded
Orientalism as a deeply flawed account of Western scholarship.
Some of Said's academic critics argue that Said made no attempt to distinguish between writers of very different types: such as on the one hand the poet
GoetheJohann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer and polymath. Goethe's works span the fields of poetry, drama, literature, theology, philosophy, humanism and science. Goethe's magnum opus, lauded as one of the peaks of world literature, is the two-part drama Faust...
(who never travelled in the East), the novelist Flaubert (who briefly toured
EgyptEgypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Western Asia...
),
Ernest RenanErnest Renan was a French philosopher and writer, devoted to his native province of Brittany...
(whose work is widely regarded as tainted by racism), and on the other scholars such as
Edward William LaneEdward William Lane was a British Orientalist, translator and lexicographer....
who was fluent in Arabic. According to these critics, their common European origins and attitudes overrode such considerations in Said's mind; Said constructed a stereotype of Europeans. Irwin writes that Said ignored the domination of 19th century Oriental studies by
GermansThe German people are an ethnic group, in the sense of sharing a common German culture, descent, and speaking the German language as a mother tongue. Within Germany, Germans are defined by citizenship , distinguished from people of German ancestry...
and
HungarianHungarians are an ethnic group primarily associated with Hungary. There are around 10 million Hungarians in Hungary . Hungarians were the main inhabitants of the Kingdom of Hungary that existed through most of the second millennium...
s, from countries that did not possess an Eastern empire.
Such critics accuse Said of creating a monolithic ‘
OccidentalismThe term Occidentalism is used in one of two main ways: a) stereotyped and sometimes dehumanizing views on the so-called Western world, including Europe and the English-speaking world; and b), ideologies or visions of the West developed in either the West or non-West. The former definition stresses...
’ to oppose to the ‘Orientalism’ of Western discourse, arguing that he failed to distinguish between the paradigms of
RomanticismRomanticism is a complex artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Western Europe, and gained strength during the Industrial Revolution...
and the
EnlightenmentEnlightenment in Western secular tradition refers mainly to the European intellectual movement known as the Age of Enlightenment, also called the Age of Reason referring to philosophical developments related to scientific rationality in the 17th and 18th centuries.Enlightenment is wisdom or...
; that he ignored the widespread and fundamental differences of opinion among western scholars of the Orient; that he failed to acknowledge that many Orientalists (such as
William JonesSir William Jones was an English philologist and scholar of ancient India, particularly known for his proposition of the existence of a relationship among Indo-European languages...
) were more concerned with establishing kinship between East and West than with creating "difference", and who had often made discoveries that would provide the foundations for anti-colonial nationalism. More generally, critics argue that Said and his followers fail to distinguish between Orientalism in the media and popular culture (for instance the portrayal of the Orient in such films as
Indiana Jones and the Temple of DoomIndiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is a 1984 adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg. It is the second film in the Indiana Jones franchise, and prequel to Raiders of the Lost Ark . After arriving in India, Indiana Jones is asked by a desperate village to find a mystical stone...
) and academic studies of Oriental languages, literature, history and culture by Western scholars (whom, it is argued, they tar with the same brush).
Said's critics argue that by making ethnicity and cultural background the test of authority and objectivity in studying the Orient, Said drew attention to the question of his own identity as a Palestinian and as a "
SubalternSubaltern is a term that commonly refers to the perspective of persons from regions and groups outside of the hegemonic power structure. In the 1970s, the term began to be used as a reference to colonized people in the South Asian subcontinent...
". Given Said's largely Anglophone upbringing and education at an elite school in Cairo, the fact that he spent most of his adult life in the United States, and his prominent position in American
academiaAcademia, Acadème, or the Academy are collective terms for the community of students and scholars engaged in higher education and research....
, his own arguments that "any and all representations … are embedded first in the language and then in the culture, institutions and political ambience of the representer … [and are] interwoven with a great many other things besides the 'truth', which is itself a representation" (
Orientalism 272) could be said to disenfranchise him from writing about the Orient himself. Hence these critics claim that the excessive relativism of Said and his followers trap them in a "web of
solipsismSolipsism is the philosophical idea that one's own mind is all that exists. Solipsism is an epistemological or ontological position that knowledge of anything outside the mind is unjustified. The external world and other minds cannot be known and might not exist...
", unable to talk of anything but "representations", and denying the existence of
any objective truth.
Conflict with Bernard Lewis
Orientalism included much criticism of historian
Bernard LewisBernard Lewis, FBA is a British-American historian, Orientalist, and political commentator. He is the Cleveland E. Dodge Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University...
, which Lewis in turn answered. Said contended that Lewis treats Islam as a monolithic entity without the nuance of its plurality, internal dynamics, and historical complexities, and accused him of "demagogy and downright ignorance." Said quoted Lewis' assertion that "the Western doctrine of the right to resist bad government is alien to Islamic thought". Lewis continued,
In the Arabic-speaking countries a different word was used for [revolution] thawra. The root th-w-r in classical Arabic meant to rise up (e.g. of a camel), to be stirred or excited, and hence, especially in Maghribi usage, to rebel.
Said suggests that this particular passage is "full of condescension and bad faith", that the example of a camel is selected deliberately to debase Arab revolutionary ambitions: "[I]t is this kind of essentialized description that is natural for students and policymakers of the Middle East." Lewis' writings, according to Said, are often "polemical, not scholarly"; Said asserts that Lewis has striven to depict Islam as "an anti-Semitic ideology, not merely a religion".
[Lewis] goes on to proclaim that Islam is an irrational herd or mass phenomenon, ruling Muslims by passions, instincts, and unreflecting hatreds. The whole point of this exposition is to frighten his audience, to make it never yield an inch to Islam. According to Lewis, Islam does not develop, and neither do Muslims; they merely are, and they are to be watched, on account of that pure essence of theirs (according to Lewis), which happens to include a long-standing hatred of Christians and Jews. Lewis everywhere refrains himself from making such inflammatory statements flat out; he always takes care to say that of course the Muslims are not anti-Semitic the way the Nazis were, but their religion can too easily accommodate itself to anti-Semitism and has done so. Similarly with regard to Islam and racism, slavery, and other more or less "Western" evils. The core of Lewis's ideology about Islam is that it never changes, and his whole mission is now to inform conservative segments of the Jewish reading public, and anyone else who cares to listen, that any political, historical, and scholarly account of Muslims must begin and end with the fact that Muslims are Muslims.
Rejecting the view that western scholarship was biased against the Middle East, Lewis responded that Orientalism developed as a facet of
EuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus Mountains , and the Black Sea to the southeast...
an
humanismHumanism is a perspective common to a wide range of ethical stances that attaches importance to human dignity, concerns, and capabilities, particularly rationality. Although the word has many senses, its meaning comes into focus when contrasted to the supernatural or to appeals to authority...
, independently of the past European imperial expansion. He noted the French and English pursued the study of Islam in the 16th and 17th centuries, yet not in an organized way, but long before they had any control or hope of control in the Middle East; and that much of Orientalist study did nothing to advance the cause of imperialism. "What imperial purpose was served by deciphering the ancient Egyptian language, for example, and then restoring to the Egyptians knowledge of and pride in their forgotten, ancient past?"
Supporters and influence
Said’s supporters argue that such criticisms, even if correct, do not invalidate his basic thesis, which they say still holds true for the 19th and 20th centuries and in particular for general representations of the Orient in Western media, literature and film. His supporters point out that Said himself acknowledges limitations of his study's failing to address German scholarship and that, in the "Afterword" to the 1995 edition of
Orientalism, he, in their view, convincingly refutes his critics, such as Lewis.
Orientalism is regarded as central to the postcolonial movement, encouraging scholars "from non-western countries...to take advantage of the mood of political correctness it helped to engender by associating themselves with 'narratives of oppression,' creating successful careers out of transmitting, interpreting and debating representations of the non-western 'other.'"
Said's continuing importance in the fields of literary criticism and cultural studies is represented by his influence on scholars studying India, such as
Gyan PrakashGyan Prakash is a historian of modern India and a Princeton University professor. Prakash is a member of the Subaltern Studies collective. Prakash received his BA in history from the University of Delhi in 1973, his MA in history from Jawaharlal Nehru University in 1975, and his PhD in history...
,
Nicholas DirksNicholas Dirks is the Franz Boas Professor of Anthropology and Professor of History at Columbia University, where he is also Vice President of Arts and Sciences and Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences...
, and
Ronald IndenRonald Inden is a professor emeritus in the Departments of History and of South Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago and is a major scholar in South Asian and post-colonial studies. Inden has been a lifelong resident of Hyde Park, the Chicago community which contains the...
, and literary theorists such as
Hamid DabashiHamid Dabashi is an Iranian-American intellectual historian, cultural critic and literary theorist who has studied Iran, world cinema and Shi'a Islam from a postcolonial perspective. He is the Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New...
,
Homi BhabhaHomi K. Bhabha is an Indian postcolonial theorist. He currently teaches at Harvard University where he is the Anne F. Rothenberg Professor of English and American Literature and Language and Director of the Humanities Center.-Early life:...
and Gayatri Spivak. His work continues to be widely discussed in academic seminars, disciplinary conferences, and scholarship.
Both supporters and critics of Edward Said acknowledge the profound, transformative influence that his book
Orientalism has had across the spectrum of the humanities. But whereas his critics regret his influence as limiting, his supporters praise his influence as liberating. Postcolonial theory, of which Said is regarded as a founder and a figure of continual relevance, continues to attract interest and is a thriving field in the humanities.
Orientalism continues to profoundly inform the field of
Middle Eastern studiesMiddle Eastern studies is a name given to a number of academic programs associated with the study of the culture, politics, economy, and geography of the Middle East, an area that is generally interpreted to cover a range of nations extending from North Africa in the west to the Chinese frontier,...
. He was a prominent public intellectual in the United States, praised widely as an "intellectual superstar," engaging in music criticism, public lectures, media punditry, contemporary politics, and musical performance. His breadth of influence is regarded as "genuinely global," resting on his unique and innovative blend of cultural criticism, politics, and literary theory.
Criticism of US foreign policy
In a 1997 revised edition of his book
Covering IslamCovering Islam is a 1981 book written by Palestinian author Edward Said about how the world views Islam. Said describes the book as the third and last in a series of books in which he analyzes the relations between the Islamic world, Arabs and East and West, France, Great Britain and the United...
, Said criticized what he viewed as the biased reporting of the Western press and, in particular, media “speculations about the latest conspiracy to blow up buildings, sabotage commercial airliners, and poison water supplies.”
Said opposed many US foreign policy endeavors in the Middle East. During an April 2003 interview with
Al-Ahram WeeklyAl-Ahram Weekly is the leading English-language newspaper in Egypt. It was established in 1991 by the Al-Ahram newspaper which also runs a French-language version, Al-Ahram Hebdo....
, Said argued that the Iraq war was ill-conceived:
{{cquote|My strong opinion, though I don't have any proof in the classical sense of the word, is that they want to change the entire Middle East and the Arab world, perhaps terminate some countries, destroy the so-called terrorist groups they dislike and install regimes friendly to the United States. I think this is a dream that has very little basis in reality. The knowledge they have of the Middle East, to judge from the people who advise them, is to say the least out of date and widely speculative....
I don't think the planning for the post-Saddam, post-war period in Iraq is very sophisticated, and there's very little of it. [US Undersecretary of State Marc]
GrossmanMarc Grossman is a retired American diplomat. He served as United States Ambassador to Turkey, Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, and Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs.-Early life and education:...
and [US Undersecretary of Defense Douglas]
FeithDouglas J. Feith served as the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy for United States President George W. Bush from July 2001 until August 2005. His official responsibilities included the formulation of defense planning guidance and forces policy, United States Department of Defense relations...
testified in Congress about a month ago and seemed to have no figures and no ideas what structures they were going to deploy; they had no idea about the use of institutions that exist, although they want to de-Ba'thise the higher echelons and keep the rest.
The same is true about their views of the army. They certainly have no use for the Iraqi opposition that they've been spending many millions of dollars on. And to the best of my ability to judge, they are going to improvise. Of course the model is
AfghanistanThe Islamic Republic of Afghanistan is a landlocked country in south central Asia. It is variously described as being located within Central Asia, South Asia, or the Middle East...
. I think they hope that the
UNThe United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and the achieving of world peace...
will come in and do something, but given the recent French and Russian positions I doubt that that will happen with such simplicity.
}}
Pro-Palestinian activism
{{Palestinians}}
As a pro-Palestinian activist, Said campaigned for a creation of an independent Palestinian state. From 1977 until 1991, he was an independent member of the
Palestinian National CouncilThe Palestinian National Council is the legislative body of the Palestine Liberation Organization and elects its Executive Committee, which assumes leadership of the organization between its sessions. The Council normally meets every two years...
who tended to stay out of factional struggles. He supported the
two-state solutionThe two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, is the consensus solution that is currently under discussion by the key parties to the conflict, most recently at the Annapolis Conference in November 2007....
and voted for the establishment of the
State of PalestineThe State of Palestine , officially simply Palestine , is a political entity that enjoys limited recognition as a state in Palestine. A Palestinian Declaration of Independence was made by the Palestine Liberation Organization on November 15 1988 in a meeting of the Palestine National Council in...
at a
Palestinian National CouncilThe Palestinian National Council is the legislative body of the Palestine Liberation Organization and elects its Executive Committee, which assumes leadership of the organization between its sessions. The Council normally meets every two years...
meeting in
AlgiersAlgiers is the capital and largest city of Algeria, and the second largest city in the Maghreb . According to the 1998 census, the population of the city proper was 1,519,570 and that of the urban agglomeration was 2,135,630...
in 1988. In 1991, he quit the PNC in protest over the process leading up to the signing of the
Oslo AccordsThe Oslo Accords, officially called the Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements or Declaration of Principles became a milestone toward the resolution of the Palestinian - Israeli conflict, one of the major continuing issues within the wider Arab-Israeli conflict...
, feeling that the terms of the accord were unacceptable and had been rejected by the
Madrid round negotiatorsThe Madrid Conference was hosted by the government of Spain and co-sponsored by the USA and the USSR. It convened on October 30 1991 and lasted for three days...
. He felt that Oslo would not lead to a truly independent state and was inferior to a plan Yasir Arafat had rejected when Said himself presented it to Arafat on behalf of the US government in the late 1970s. In particular, he wrote that Arafat had sold short the right of Palestinian
refugeeUnder the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, a refugee is a person who owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted on account of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of their nationality,...
s to return to their homes in pre-1967 Israel and ignored the growing presence of Israeli settlements. Said's relationship with the Palestinian Authority was once so bad that PA leaders banned the sale of his books in August 1995, but improved when he hailed Arafat for rejecting
Ehud BarakEhud Barak is an Israeli politician, former Prime Minister, and current Minister of Defense, deputy prime minister and leader of Israel's Labor Party....
's offers at the
Camp David 2000 SummitThe Middle East Peace Summit at Camp David of July 2000 took place between United States President Bill Clinton, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat...
.
On July 3, 2000, Said was photographed lobbing a rock across the
Lebanon-Israel borderThe Blue Line is a border demarcation between Lebanon and Israel published by the United Nations on 7 June 2000 for the purposes of determining whether Israel had fully withdrawn from Lebanon...
. Although he denied aiming the rock at Israeli soldiers, an eyewitness account in the Lebanese newspaper
As-SafirAs-Safir The Ambassador, is a leading Arabic-language daily newspaper in Lebanon.It was first published on March 26, 1974 as an Arabic political daily....
asserted that he had positioned himself less than {{convert|30|ft|m}} from Israeli soldiers manning a two-story
watchtowerA watchtower is a type of fortification used in many parts of the world. It differs from a regular tower in that its primary use is military, and from a turret in that it is usually a freestanding structure. Its main purpose is to provide a high, safe place from which a sentinel or guard may...
before throwing the rock over the border fence, though it instead hit barbed-wire. Said later said, "One stone tossed into an empty space scarcely warrants a second thought", labeling the stone-throwing as "a symbolic gesture of joy".
While the photo provoked criticism from some Columbia faculty members and students and from the
Anti-Defamation LeagueThe Anti-Defamation League is an international non-governmental organization based in the United States of America. Describing itself as "the nation's premier civil rights/human relations agency", the ADL states that it "fights anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry, defends democratic ideals and...
, the provost issued a statement defending Said's act on the grounds of freedom of expression, a position echoed by his supporters on campus.
In 2002, Said suggested, "Above all we must, as Mandela never tired of saying about his struggle, be aware that Palestine is one of the great moral causes of our time." Later that year, Said, along with
Haidar Abdel-ShafiHaidar Abdel-Shafi was a Palestinian physician, community leader and political leader who was the head of the Palestinian delegation to the Madrid Conference of 1991.- Background :...
, Ibrahim Dakak, and
Mustafa BarghoutiMustafa Barghouti is a Palestinian democracy activist. He was a candidate for the presidency of the Palestinian National Authority in 2005, finishing second to Mahmoud Abbas, with 19% of the vote.Barghouti was born in Jerusalem...
, helped establish the
Palestinian National InitiativePalestinian National Initiative is a Palestinian political movement or party led by Dr. Mustafa Barghouti....
, or
Al-Mubadara, an attempt to build a third force in Palestinian politics, a democratic, reformist alternative to
FatahNot to be confused with Fatah Revolutionary Council also known as Abu Nidal OrganizationFataḥ is a major Palestinian political party and the largest faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization , a multi-party confederation. In Palestinian politics it is on the center-left of the spectrum...
and
HamasHamas is a Palestinian Islamic socio-political organization which includes a paramilitary force, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades...
.
In August 2003, in an article published online in
CounterpunchCounterPunch is a bi-weekly newsletter published in the United States that covers politics in a manner its editors describe as "muckraking with a radical attitude"...
, Said summarizes his position on the contemporary rights of Palestinians vis-à-vis the historical experience of the Jewish people:
{{cquote|I have spent a great deal of my life during the past 35 years advocating the rights of the Palestinian people to national self-determination, but I have always tried to do that with full attention paid to the reality of the Jewish people and what they suffered by way of persecution and genocide. The paramount thing is that the struggle for equality in Palestine/Israel should be directed toward a humane goal, that is, co-existence, and not further suppression and denial.}}
Said was an early proponent of a two-state solution, and, in an important academic article entitled
Zionism from the Standpoint of its Victims, he argued that both the Zionist claim to a land - and, more importantly, the Zionist claim that the Jewish people needed a homeland - and Palestinian rights of self-determination held legitimacy and authenticity. Said's books on the issue of Israel and Palestine include
The Question of Palestine (1979),
The Politics of Dispossession (1994) and
The End of the Peace Process (2000).
{{cquote|[I]n all my works I remained fundamentally critical of a gloating and uncritical nationalism.... My view of Palestine ... remains the same today: I expressed all sorts of reservations about the insouciant nativism and militant militarism of the nationalist consensus; I suggested instead a critical look at the Arab environment, Palestinian history, and the Israeli realities, with the explicit conclusion that only a negotiated settlement between the two communities of suffering, Arab and Jewish, would provide respite from the unending war.}}
In January 2006, anthropologist
David Price-Military:*David Price , East India Company officer and orientalist*David Price , British Rear Admiral at the Siege of Petropavlovsk- Politics :...
obtained 147 pages of Said's 238-page
FBIThe Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency. The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
file through a Freedom of Information Act request. The records reveal that Said was under FBI surveillance as early as 1971. He and his family were aware that any support towards the Palestinian cause would provoke such investigations. No records were available on the last dozen years of his life.
Weiner's claims about Said's early life
In 1999,
CommentaryCommentary is an American monthly magazine covering politics, international affairs, Judaism, and social, cultural, and literary issues.-History:...
published an article by lawyer
Justus WeinerJustus Reid Weiner is a UC Berkeley law school graduate and a Boston native. By his own account, Weiner worked at the Wall Street firm White & Case before moving to Israel in 1981....
claiming that Said's nuclear family did not permanently reside in Talbiya or live there during the final months of the British mandate, and therefore could not be considered refugees. Weiner claimed that Said's aunt owned a house in Talbiya while Said's family visited occasionally. Weiner wrote that "On [Said's] birth certificate, prepared by the ministry of health of the British Mandate, his parents specified their permanent address as Cairo," leaving blank the space for a local address. Weiner reasons that Said grew up in Cairo, and "probably" did not attended St. George's Academy in Jerusalem except briefly. Weiner claims that Said's name is not on the school registry and that David Eben-Ezra, whom Said mentioned as a classmate, does not remember him. Though he wrote that he had not interviewed Edward Said, Weiner also claimed that Said had no recollection of basic facts regarding the house, such as the presence of the Consulate of
YugoslaviaYugoslavia is a term that describes three political entities that existed successively on the Balkan Peninsula in Europe, during most of the 20th century.The first country to be known by this...
or that the philosopher
Martin BuberMartin Buber was an Austrian-born Jewish philosopher best known for his philosophy of dialogue, a religious existentialism centered on the distinction between the I-Thou relationship and the I-It relationship.Born in Vienna, Buber came from a family of observant Jews, but broke with Jewish...
rented his aunt's apartment and that she had evicted him in 1941 when Said was six years old.
Three journalists and one historian wrote that Weiner's claims are false.
Alexander CockburnAlexander Claud Cockburn , born 6 June 1941, is an Irish-American political journalist. Cockburn was brought up in Ireland but has lived and worked in the United States since 1972. Together with Jeffrey St. Clair, he edits the political newsletter CounterPunch...
and
Jeffrey St. ClairJeffrey St. Clair is an investigative journalist, writer and editor. He is the co-editor, with Alexander Cockburn, of the political newsletter CounterPunch, and a contributing editor to the monthly magazine In These Times. He has also written for The Washington Post, San Francisco Examiner, The...
of
CounterpunchCounterPunch is a bi-weekly newsletter published in the United States that covers politics in a manner its editors describe as "muckraking with a radical attitude"...
interviewed Haig Boyadjian, who reported telling Weiner that he had been Said's classmate, a fact Weiner omitted mentioning. In
The Nation,
Christopher HitchensChristopher Eric Hitchens is an English-American author, journalist, and literary critic. He has been a columnist at Vanity Fair, The Atlantic, World Affairs, The Nation, Slate, Free Inquiry, and a variety of other media outlets...
wrote that schoolmates and teachers confirmed Said's stay at St. George's, and quoted Said stating, in 1992, that he had spent much of his youth in Cairo.
Amos ElonAmos Elon was an Israeli journalist and author.-Biography:Amos Elon was born in Vienna. He immigrated to Mandate Palestine in 1933. He studied law and history in Israel and England. He was married to Beth Elon, a New York-born literary agent, with whom he had one daughter, Danae. In the 1990s,...
, biographer of the founders of Israel, wrote in
The New York Review of Books that Weiner failed to disprove that, in the winter of 1947–48, Said "and his family sought refuge from the war outside Palestine, as did hundreds of thousands of other Palestinians at the time. The fact remains that shortly afterward the family's property in Jerusalem was confiscated. Said and his family became political refugees as the result of the Israeli government's refusal to allow them to return to the country of their birth." In reply, Weiner accused Elon of dishonesty.
Edward Said observed that the publishers of
Commentary had attacked him in three long articles and that Weiner's was the third in the series. Both Said and Weiner reported that Weiner did not contact Said before or after the article was published. Said commented that the article about his early life was "undercut by dozens of mistakes of fact".
Edward Said Memorial Lecture
An annual lecture in memory of Edward Said is presented every October at the
University of AdelaideThe University of Adelaide is a public university located in Adelaide, South Australia. Established in 1874, it is the third oldest university in Australia...
. The lecturers are described by the university as "high profile intellectuals who transcend the gap of academia and public discourse." The lectures so far have been: 2005
Robert FiskRobert Fisk is an English writer and journalist. Middle East correspondent of the The Independent, he has been based mainly in Beirut for more than 30 years....
, 2006
Tanya ReinhartTanya Reinhart was an Israeli linguist who wrote frequently on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She contributed columns to the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot and longer articles to the CounterPunch, Znet, and Israeli Indymedia websites.Reinhart studied philosophy and Hebrew literature at the...
, 2007 Ghada Karmi, 2008
Sara RoySara Roy is an American political scientist and scholar. She is a Senior Research Scholar at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University....
, 2009
Saree MakdisiSaree Makdisi is an American Professor of English Literature at the University of California, Los Angeles . Makdisi is the author of several books on British Romanticism, which is his area of expertise, and he writes on contemporary Arab politics and culture...
.
Works
| Publications |
| Year |
Book |
Notes |
Publisher |
| 1966 |
Joseph ConradJoseph Conrad was a Polish-born British novelist, who in 1886 became a British subject....
and the Fiction of AutobiographyAn autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...
|
|
Harvard University Press Harvard University Press is a publishing house, a division of Harvard University, that is highly respected in academic publishing. It was established on January 13, 1913. In 2005, it published 220 new titles. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses . The current director...
. Republished by Columbia University PressColumbia University Press is a university press based in New York City, and affiliated with Columbia University. It is currently directed by James D. Jordan and publishes titles in the humanities and sciences, including the fields of literary and cultural studies, history, social work, sociology,...
in 2007, ISBN 0-231-14004-5 |
| 1973 |
The Arabs Today: Alternatives for Tomorrow |
Essays presented at the fourth annual convention of the Association of Arab-American University Graduates, Boston, 1971. Edited by Said and Fuad Suleiman. |
Forum Associates (Columbus, OhioColumbus is the capital and the largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio. It is the county seat of Franklin County, although parts of the city also extend into Delaware and Fairfield counties...
) |
| 1975 |
Beginnings: Intention and Method |
|
Basic Books Basic Books is a book publisher founded in 1952 and located in New York. It publishes books in the fields of psychology, philosophy, economics, science, politics, sociology, current affairs, and history.-History:...
, ISBN 0-465-00580-2. Reprinted by Johns Hopkins University PressThe Johns Hopkins University Press is the publishing division of the Johns Hopkins University. It was founded in 1878 and holds the distinction of being the oldest continuously running university press in the United States. The Press publishes books, journals, and electronic databases...
in 1978, ISBN 0-801-82085-5. New edition published by Columbia University PressColumbia University Press is a university press based in New York City, and affiliated with Columbia University. It is currently directed by James D. Jordan and publishes titles in the humanities and sciences, including the fields of literary and cultural studies, history, social work, sociology,...
in 1985, ISBN 0-231-05937-X |
| 1978 |
Orientalism Orientalism is the 1978 book by Edward Said that has been highly influential in postcolonial studies.In the book, Said says that orientalism, especially the academic study of, and discourse, political and literary, about the Arabs, Islam, and the Middle East that primarily originated in...
|
|
Pantheon Books, ISBN 0-394-42814-5. Republished by Vintage Books in 1979, ISBN 0-394-74067-X. 25th Anniversary Edition published by Penguin Classics in 2003, with 1995 afterword, ISBN 0-141-18742-5 |
| 1979 |
The Question of Palestine |
|
Times Books Times Books is a publishing imprint owned by the New York Times Company and licensed to Henry Holt and Company....
, ISBN 0-812-90832-5. Republished by Vintage Books in 1980, ISBN 0-394-74527-2. Republished, with a new introduction and epilogue, by Vintage Books in 1992, ISBN 0-679-73988-2 |
| 1980 |
Literature and Society |
Edited, with preface, by Said |
Johns Hopkins University PressThe Johns Hopkins University Press is the publishing division of the Johns Hopkins University. It was founded in 1878 and holds the distinction of being the oldest continuously running university press in the United States. The Press publishes books, journals, and electronic databases...
, ISBN 0-801-82294-7 |
| The Middle East: What Chances For Peace? |
Edited by François Sauzey. Contributions by Joseph J. Sisco Joseph John Sisco , was a diplomat who played a major role in then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's shuttle diplomacy in the Middle East and whose career in the State Department spanned five presidential administrations and numerous foreign-policy crises.-Early life:A Chicago native, Dr. Sisco...
, Shlomo AvineriShlomo Avineri is an Israeli political scientist. He is Professor of Political Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem...
, Said, Saburo OkitaSaburo Okita was a Japanese economist and government official. Okita graduated from Tokyo Imperial University . In 1937 he worked as an engineer with the Ministry of Posts...
, Udo Steinbach, William ScrantonWilliam Warren Scranton is a former U.S. Republican Party politician. Scranton served as Governor of Pennsylvania from 1963 to 1967. From 1976 to 1977, he served as United States Ambassador to the United Nations.-Early life:...
, Abdel Hamid Abdel-Ghani and H.R.H. Prince Saud al-FaisalSaud bin Faisal bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud, more commonly referred to as Saud al-Faisal, is the Foreign Minister of Saudi Arabia. He was appointed to that position in 1975 by King Khalid, and he speaks 7 languages....
|
Trialogue series. Published by the Trilateral CommissionThe Trilateral Commission is a private organization, established to foster closer cooperation among the United States, Europe and Japan. It was founded in July 1973 at the initiative of David Rockefeller, who was Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations at that time...
{{OCLC>271040449}} http://www.trilateral.org/AnnMtgs/Trialog/library_annmtgs/stacks_annmtgs/Middle_East_What_Chances_Peace.pdf |
| 1981 |
Covering Islam Covering Islam is a 1981 book written by Palestinian author Edward Said about how the world views Islam. Said describes the book as the third and last in a series of books in which he analyzes the relations between the Islamic world, Arabs and East and West, France, Great Britain and the United...
: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World |
|
Pantheon Books, ISBN 0-394-50923-4, ISBN 0-394-74808-5 (paperback). Revised edition published by Vintage Books in 1997, ISBN 0-679-75890-9 |
| 1983 |
The World, the Text, and the Critic |
|
Harvard University Press Harvard University Press is a publishing house, a division of Harvard University, that is highly respected in academic publishing. It was established on January 13, 1913. In 2005, it published 220 new titles. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses . The current director...
, ISBN 0-674-96186-2 |
| 1986 |
After the Last Sky: Palestinian Lives |
With photographs by Jean Mohr Jean Mohr is a German-Swiss documentary photographer who has been active since 1949, primarily with some of the major humanitarian organizations of the world, including the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, the International Committee of the Red Cross , United Nations Relief and Works...
. |
Pantheon Books, ISBN 0-394-54413-7, ISBN 0-394-74469-1 (paperback). Faber and Faber Faber and Faber, often abbreviated to Faber, is an independent publishing house in the UK, notable in particular for publishing a great deal of poetry and for its former editor T. S. Eliot. Faber has a rich tradition of publishing a wide range of fiction, non fiction, drama, film and music books,...
, ISBN 0-571-13683-4. Republished by Columbia University PressColumbia University Press is a university press based in New York City, and affiliated with Columbia University. It is currently directed by James D. Jordan and publishes titles in the humanities and sciences, including the fields of literary and cultural studies, history, social work, sociology,...
in 1999, ISBN 0-231-11449-4 (paperback) |
| 1987 |
Criticism in Society |
Interviews with Jacques DerridaJacques Derrida was a French philosopher born in Algeria, who is known as the founder of deconstruction. His voluminous work had a profound impact upon literary theory and continental philosophy...
, Northrop FryeHerman Northrop Frye, CC, FRSC was a Canadian literary critic and literary theorist, considered one of the most influential of the 20th century....
, Harold BloomHarold Bloom is an American writer and literary critic, currently Sterling Professor of the Humanities at Yale University...
, Geoffrey HartmanGeoffrey H. Hartman is a German-born American literary theorist, sometimes identified with the Yale School of deconstruction, but also has written on a wide range of subjects, and cannot be categorized by a single school or method.-Biography:...
, Frank Kermode-Biography:Sir Frank Kermode is known for many works of criticism; and also as editor of the popular Fontana Modern Masters series of introductions to individual modern thinkers. He is a regular contributor to the London Review of Books and The New York Review of Books.Kermode was born on the Isle...
, Said, Barbara JohnsonBarbara Johnson was an American literary critic and translator. She was a Professor of English and Comparative Literature and the Fredric Wertham Professor of Law and Psychiatry in Society at Harvard University...
, Frank LentricchiaFrank Lentricchia is an American literary critic, novelist, and film teacher. He received his Ph.D. and M.A. from Duke University in 1966 and 1963 respectively after receiving a B.A. from Utica College in 1962. Lentricchia is currently a literature and film studies professor at Duke...
, and J. Hillis MillerJ. Hillis Miller is an American literary critic who has been heavily influenced by—and who has heavily influenced—deconstruction.- Life :...
. Compiled by Imre SalusinszkyImre Salusinszky in an Australian conservative columnist and English literature academic.Having been an editorial advisor for Quadrant and currently a NSW political reporter and columnist for The Australian newspaper, he was appointed chairman of the Literature Board of the Australia Council for a...
. |
Taylor & FrancisTaylor & Francis Group is an international company originating in the United Kingdom which publishes books and academic journals. It is a division of Informa plc, a United Kingdom-based publisher and conference company....
, ISBN 0416922708 |
| 1988 |
Blaming the Victims Blaming the Victims: Spurious Scholarship and the Palestinian Question, is a collection of essays, co-edited by Edward Said and Christopher Hitchens, and first published by Verso Books in 1988 ....
: Spurious Scholarship and the Palestinian Question |
Edited by Said and Christopher HitchensChristopher Eric Hitchens is an English-American author, journalist, and literary critic. He has been a columnist at Vanity Fair, The Atlantic, World Affairs, The Nation, Slate, Free Inquiry, and a variety of other media outlets...
|
Verso Books Verso Books is a publishing house based in London and New York City, founded in 1970 by the staff of New Left Review. The company boasts "global sales approaching $3 million per year and over 350 titles in print," possibly making it "the largest radical publisher in the English-language...
, ISBN 0-860-91175-6, ISBN 0-860-91887-4 (paperback) |
| Nationalism, Colonialism, and Literature: Yeats William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet and playwright.Yeats may also refer to:* Yeats ,* Yeats , an impact crater on Mercury* Yeats , an Irish thoroughbred racehorse-See also:...
and DecolonizationDecolonization refers to the undoing of colonialism, the establishment of governance or authority through the creation of settlements by another country or jurisdiction. The term generally refers to the achievement of independence by the various Western colonies and protectorates in Asia and...
|
|
Field Day (DerryDerry or Londonderry often called the Maiden City, is a city in Northern Ireland. It is the second largest city in Northern Ireland and fourth largest city in the island of Ireland...
), ISBN 0-946-75516-7 |
| 1989 |
Kim Kim is a novel by Rudyard Kipling. It was first published serially in McClure's Magazine from December 1900 to October 1901 as well as in Cassell's Magazine from January to November 1901, and first published in book form by MacMillan & Co. Ltd in October 1901...
by Rudyard KiplingRudyard Kipling was a British author and poet. Born in Bombay, British India, he is best known for his works of fiction The Jungle Book , Kim , many short stories, including The Man Who Would Be King ; and his poems, including...
|
Edited with an introduction and notes by Said |
Penguin BooksPenguin Books is a publisher founded in 1935 by Allen Lane. Lane's idea was to provide quality writing cheaply, for the same price as a packet of cigarettes. He also wanted them to be sold not only in bookshops but in railway stations, general stores and corner shops. Its most emblematic products...
, ISBN 0-140-18352-3 |
| 1990 |
Nationalism, Colonialism, and Literature |
Reprint of Said's "Yeats and decolonization" with essays by Terry Eagleton Terence Francis Eagleton is a British literary theorist, regarded by some as Britain's most influential living literary critic...
, Fredric JamesonFredric Jameson is an American literary critic and Marxist political theorist. He is best known for his analysis of contemporary cultural trends—he once described postmodernism as the spatialization of culture under the pressure of organized capitalism...
, and an introduction by Seamus DeaneSeamus Deane is an Irish poet, critic and novelist.Deane was born into a Roman Catholic nationalist family. He attended the well known St. Columb's College in Derry, Queen's University Belfast and Pembroke College, Cambridge University . At St...
|
University of Minnesota Press The University of Minnesota Press is a university press that is part of the University of Minnesota.Founded in 1925, the University of Minnesota Press is best known for its books in social and cultural thought, critical theory, race and ethnic studies, urbanism, feminist criticism, and media...
, ISBN 0-816-61862-3, ISBN 0-816-61863-1 (paperback) |
| 1991 |
Musical Elaborations |
|
Columbia University Press Columbia University Press is a university press based in New York City, and affiliated with Columbia University. It is currently directed by James D. Jordan and publishes titles in the humanities and sciences, including the fields of literary and cultural studies, history, social work, sociology,...
, ISBN 0-231-07318-6 |
| 1993 |
Napoleon in Egypt: Al-Jabartî Abd al-Rahman al-Jabarti or in Egyptian Arabic el Gabarti was a Somali–Egyptian Muslim scholar and chronicler who spent most of his life in Cairo.-Biography:While little is known of his life, according to Franz Steiner, al-Jabarti...
's Chronicle of the First Seven Months of the French Occupation, 1798 translated by Smuel Moreh |
Includes "The scope of orientalism" by Said |
M. Wiener Publishers (Princeton, New JerseyPrinceton, New Jersey is located in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. Princeton University has been sited in the town since 1756. Although Princeton is a "college town", there are other important institutions in the area, including the Institute for Advanced Study, Educational Testing...
), ISBN 1-558-76069-5, ISBN 1-558-76070-9 (paperback) |
| Culture and Imperialism Culture and Imperialism is the 1993 sequel to Edward Said's highly influential book Orientalism from 1978.-Subject:In a series of essays, Said argues the impact of mainstream culture on colonialism and imperialism., and conversely how imperialism, resistance to it, and...
|
|
Knopf, distributed by Random HouseRandom House, Inc. is the world's largest English-language general trade book publisher. It has been owned since 1998 by the large German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing...
, ISBN 0-394-58738-3. Republished by Vintage Books in 1994, ISBN 0-679-75054-1 |
| Edward Said: A Critical Reader |
Edited by Michael Sprinker Michael Sprinker was a literary critic known for his writings on Louis Althusser, Walter Benjamin and Bertold Brecht, among others, as well as for his editorial work at Verso, Cambridge University Press, the New Left Review and The Minnesota Review...
|
Wiley-Blackwell, ISBN 1-557-86229-X |
| 1994 |
The Pen and the Sword: Conversations with David Barsamian David Barsamian is an Armenian-American radio broadcaster, writer, and the founder and director of the left-leaning Alternative Radio, the Boulder, Colorado-based syndicated weekly talk program heard on some 125 radio stations in various countries....
|
|
Common Courage Press (Monroe, Maine Monroe is a town in Waldo County, Maine, United States. The population was 882 at the 2000 census.-Geography:According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 39.0 square miles , of which, 38.8 square miles of it is land and 0.2 square miles of it is...
), ISBN 1-567-51031-0, ISBN 1-567-51030-2 (paperback) |
| The Politics of Dispossession: The Struggle for Palestinian Self-Determination, 1969-1994 |
|
Pantheon Books, ISBN 0-679-43057-1 |
| Representations of the Intellectual: The 1993 Reith lectures |
|
Pantheon Books, ISBN 0-679-43586-7 |
| 1995 |
Peace and Its Discontents: Essays on Palestine in the Middle East Peace Process |
Preface by Christopher HitchensChristopher Eric Hitchens is an English-American author, journalist, and literary critic. He has been a columnist at Vanity Fair, The Atlantic, World Affairs, The Nation, Slate, Free Inquiry, and a variety of other media outlets...
|
Vintage Books, ISBN 0-679-76725-8 |
| 1999 |
Acts of Aggression: Policing Rogue States |
Collection by Noam ChomskyAvram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, political activist, author, and lecturer. He is an Institute Professor and professor emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Chomsky is well known in the academic and scientific community as...
, Said and Ramsey ClarkWilliam Ramsey Clark is a lawyer and former United States Attorney General. He worked for the U.S. Department of Justice, which included service as the 66th United States Attorney General under President Lyndon B. Johnson. Ramsey is known for his advocacy for civil and human rights causes...
|
Seven Stories Press Seven Stories Press is an independent publishing company known for both cutting-edge works of fiction and a wide array of nonfiction by leading progressive voices of conscience and dissent. Located in New York City, it was founded by editor Dan Simon in 1995 after he parted company with Four Walls...
and Turnaround Publisher Services (London), ISBN 1-583-22005-4 |
| Out of Place: A Memoir As a literary genre, a memoir , forms a subclass of autobiography – although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are almost interchangeable in modern parlance. Memoir is autobiographical writing, but not all autobiographical writing follows the criteria for memoir, as listed here...
|
|
Knopf, ISBN 0-394-58739-1 |
Complete Stories, 1884-1891 by Henry JamesHenry James, O.M. was an American author who expatriated to England, and who acquired British nationality near the end of his life. One of the key figures of 19th century literary realism, James was born in the United States, the son of theologian Henry James, Sr., and brother of the philosopher...
|
Edited by Said |
Library of America The Library of America is a nonprofit publisher of classic American literature.- Overview and history :Founded in 1979 with seed money from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Ford Foundation, the LoA has published nearly 200 volumes by a wide range of authors from Mark Twain to...
, ISBN 1-883-01164-7 |
| 2000 |
Mona Hatoum Mona Hatoum is a performance artist and installation artist of Palestinian origin, who lives in London.-Life and work:Mona Hatoum was born in Beirut, Lebanon. During a visit to London in 1975, civil war broke out in Lebanon and she was forced into exile...
: The Entire World as a Foreign Land |
Essays by Said and Sheena Wagstaff |
Tate Gallery Publishing (London), ISBN 1-854-37326-9 |
| The Edward Said Reader |
Edited by Moustafa Bayoumi Moustafa Bayoumi is an associate professor of English at Brooklyn College, the City University of New York. Born in Zürich, Switzerland and raised in Kingston, Canada, he currently lives in Brooklyn....
and Andrew Rubin |
Vintage Books, ISBN 0-375-70936-3 |
The End of the Peace Process: OsloThe Oslo Accords, officially called the Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements or Declaration of Principles became a milestone toward the resolution of the Palestinian - Israeli conflict, one of the major continuing issues within the wider Arab-Israeli conflict...
and After |
|
Pantheon Books, ISBN 0-375-40930-0. Republished by Vintage Books in 2001, ISBN 0-375-72574-1 |
| Reflections on Exile and Other Essays |
|
Harvard University Press Harvard University Press is a publishing house, a division of Harvard University, that is highly respected in academic publishing. It was established on January 13, 1913. In 2005, it published 220 new titles. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses . The current director...
, ISBN 0-674-00302-0 |
| 2001 |
Power, Politics, and Culture: Interviews with Edward W. Said |
Edited and with an introduction by Gauri Viswanathan |
Pantheon Books, ISBN 0-375-42107-6 |
| 2002 |
Parallels and Paradoxes: Explorations in Music and Society |
By Daniel BarenboimDaniel Barenboim is an Argentinian-born pianist and conductor. He lives in Berlin and holds citizenship in Argentina, Israel, and Spain. He also holds a passport issued by the Palestinian Authority. Barenboim first came to prominence as a pianist but is now perhaps better known as a conductor...
and Said. Edited, with a preface, by Ara Guzelimian. |
Pantheon Books, ISBN 0-375-42106-8. Republished by Vintage Books in 2004, ISBN 1-400-07515-7 |
| Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years by Israël Shahak Israel Shahak , was a Polish-born Israeli chemist, a professor of chemistry at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, known especially as a radical political thinker and author and activist for the defense of the human and civil rights...
|
Foreword to the second printing by Said |
Pluto Press Pluto Press is a progressive, independent publisher based in London. It was founded in 1969 by Richard Kuper and others as an arm of International Socialism, the forerunner of the Socialist Workers Party in the UK. In 1979 it ended that political affiliation and became truly independent...
, ISBN 0-745-30818-X |
CIA et Jihad, 1950-2001: contre l'URSS, une désastreuse alliance
by John K. CooleyJohn Kent Cooley was an American journalist and author who specialized in terrorism and the Middle East. Based in Athens, he worked as a radio and off-air television correspondent for ABC News and was a long-time contributing editor to the Christian Science Monitor.Cooley was one of only a handful...
|
Preface by Said |
Autrement (Paris), ISBN 2-746-70188-X |
| 2003 |
Culture and Resistance: Conversations With Edward W. Said |
Interviews with Said by David Barsamian David Barsamian is an Armenian-American radio broadcaster, writer, and the founder and director of the left-leaning Alternative Radio, the Boulder, Colorado-based syndicated weekly talk program heard on some 125 radio stations in various countries....
|
South End Press South End Press is a non-profit book publisher which is run on a model of participatory economics, and was founded in 1977 by Michael Albert, Lydia Sargent, John Schall, Pat Walker, Juliet Schor, Mary Lea, Joe Bowring, and Dave Millikan, among others. Currently, the majority of staff of South End...
, ISBN 0-896-08671-2, ISBN 0-896-08670-4 (paperback) |
| Freud and the Non-European |
With an introduction by Christopher Bollas and a response by Jacqueline Rose Jacqueline Rose is a British academic who is currently Professor of English at Queen Mary, University of London. Born into a liberal Jewish family, Rose is known for her work on the relationship between psychoanalysis, feminism and literature...
. |
Verso Books, ISBN 1-859-84500-2 |
| 2004 |
From Oslo to Iraq and the Road Map |
Foreword by Tony JudtTony Judt is a British historian, author and university professor. He specializes in European history and is the Erich Maria Remarque Professor in European Studies at New York University and Director of NYU's Erich Maria Remarque Institute. He is a frequent contributor to the New York Review of...
, afterword by Wadie E. Said. |
Pantheon Books, ISBN 0-375-42287-0 |
| {{cite book>title=Humanism and Democratic Criticism|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=i9UalVoa5_YC&dq}} |
|
Columbia University Press Columbia University Press is a university press based in New York City, and affiliated with Columbia University. It is currently directed by James D. Jordan and publishes titles in the humanities and sciences, including the fields of literary and cultural studies, history, social work, sociology,...
, ISBN 0-231-12264-0 |
| Interviews With Edward W. Said |
Edited by Amritjit Singh and Bruce G. Johnson. |
University Press of Mississippi The University Press of Mississippi, founded in 1970, is a publisher that is sponsored by the eight state universities in Mississippi:*Alcorn State University*Delta State University*Jackson State University*Mississippi State University...
, ISBN 1-578-06365-5, ISBN 1-578-06366-3 (paperback) |
| 2005 |
Edward Said: Continuing the Conversation |
Edited by Homi Bhabha and W.J.T. Mitchell |
University of Chicago Press The University of Chicago Press is the largest university press in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including The Chicago Manual of Style, dozens of academic journals, including Critical Inquiry, and a wide array of...
, ISBN 0-226-53201-1, ISBN 0-226-53203-8 (paperback) |
| 2006 |
Paradoxical Citizenship: Edward Said |
Edited by Silvia Nagy-Zekmi |
Lexington Books, ISBN 0-739-10988-5, ISBN 0-739-10988-X |
| On Late Style: Music and Literature Against the Grain |
Foreword by Mariam C. Said, introduction by Michael Wood Michael Wood born in Lincoln, England, is the Charles Barnwell Straut Class of 1923 Professor of English and Professor of comparative literature at Princeton University...
|
Pantheon Books, ISBN 0-375-42105-X |
| 2008 |
Waiting for the Barbarians: A Tribute to Edward W. Said |
Edited by Müge Gürsoy Sökmen and Bașak Ertür. Contributions by 15 authors including Akeel Bilgrami Akeel Bilgrami is an Indian-born philosopher and the author of Belief and Meaning, Self-Knowledge and Resentment, and Politics and the Moral Psychology of Identity , as well as various articles in Philosophy of Mind as well as in Political and Moral Psychology...
, Rashid KhalidiRashid Ismail Khalidi , born 1948, a Palestinian-American historian of the Middle East, is the Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University, and director of the Middle East Institute of Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs.-Family, education and...
and Elias Khoury. |
Verso Books, ISBN 1-844-67245-X, ISBN 1-844-67246-8 (paperback) |
Interviews
- Scott Simon on Weekend Edition Saturday (1999-11-06, National Public Radio
National Public Radio is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to 797 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, signed into law...
) http://books.google.ca/books?id=OC6PxMiYc3YC&pg=PA193&lpg=PA193&dq=%22Edward+Said%22+interview+Scott+Simon+1999&source=bl&ots=Rkj4fLWvTC&sig=iOC0Kl6ww4336aK5J4HO3c_NJ2A&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=2&ct=result
- Christopher Lydon on The Connection (2000-04-07, WBUR
WBUR refers to two radio stations in Massachusetts, WBUR AM and FM, both owned by Boston University. WBUR is the largest of three NPR member stations in Boston, Massachusetts, along with WGBH_ and WUMB-FM, and the only one to focus exclusively on news and talk...
90.9 FM, Boston) http://books.google.ca/books?id=OC6PxMiYc3YC&pg=PA199&lpg=PA199&dq=%22Edward+Said%22+interview+Connection+Boston&source=bl&ots=Rkj4fLVrQH&sig=2galOfTQyyAmg-jO-LUVKk5A2_o&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=2&ct=result
- Scott Simon on Weekend Edition Saturday 'Barenboim and Said: 'Parallels and Paradoxes' (2002-12-28, National Public Radio
National Public Radio is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to 797 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, signed into law...
)
See also
- The Edward Said National Conservatory of Music
The Edward Said National Conservatory of Music is a Palestinian music conservatory with branches in Ramallah, Jerusalem, and Bethlehem. In total, there are more than 500 students. It was established in 1993 as The National Conservatory of Music, with its first branch, in Ramallah, opening in...
, named in his honor
- A land without a people for a people without a land
"A land without a people for a people without a land" is a widely-cited phrase associated with the reintroduction of a Jewish state in the land of Israel....
- Daniel Barenboim
Daniel Barenboim is an Argentinian-born pianist and conductor. He lives in Berlin and holds citizenship in Argentina, Israel, and Spain. He also holds a passport issued by the Palestinian Authority. Barenboim first came to prominence as a pianist but is now perhaps better known as a conductor...
External links
{{linkfarm}}
{{wikiquote}}
- Edward W. Said: A Bibliography, compiled by Eddie Yeghiayan.
- Edward M. Said Selected Bibliography (includes reviews of publications by Said)
- Edward Said dossier (Le Monde diplomatique)
- "The Legacy of Edward Said" by Andrew N. Rubin, talk at Georgetown University's Center for Contemporary Arab Studies.
- "Writing to the moment" Review of Edward Said's work on the occasion of the anniversary of his death in The Guardian
The Guardian is a British daily newspaper owned by the Guardian Media Group. Founded in 1821, it is unique among major British newspapers in being owned by a foundation .The Guardian Weekly, which circulates worldwide, provides a compact digest of four newspapers...
.
- Columbia News mourns passing of Said
- A Devil Theory of Islam Edward Said's commentary on writings by The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded in 1851 and published in New York City. The largest metropolitan newspaper in the United States, "The Gray Lady"—named for its staid appearance and style—is regarded as a national newspaper of record...
journalist Judith MillerJudith Miller , is an American journalist. Miller, based in Washington D.C., was a prominent New York Times reporter with access to top U.S. government officials...
- The Edward Said Archive Unofficial fansite
A fansite, fan site, or fanpage is a website created and maintained by a fan or devotee interested in a celebrity, thing, or a particular cultural phenomenon...
.
- Edward Said index on The Electronic Intifada.
- Obrad Savic "Edvard Said: Razbastinjeni intelektualac", a tribute by Professor Obrad Savić (founder of the Belgrade Circle
The Belgrade Circle is an NGO established in Belgrade, Serbia, in February 1992.Initially, the organisation hosted lectures and discussions with mainly Serbian intellectuals, united by their opposition to the nationalist policies of Slobodan Milošević...
).
- South End Press, Said's publications by South End Press and a brief biographical account.
- Islam Through Western Eyes, article by Said explaining the main thesis of Orientalism.
- Zmag.org/Middle East Watch Tributes posted in ZMagazine.
- A Mighty and Passionate Heart, obituary by Alexander Cockburn posted in Counterpunch.
- Edward, a tribute by Dr. Hanan Ashrawi
Dr Hanan Daoud Khalil Ashrawi is a Palestinian legislator, activist, and scholar. She was a protégé and later colleague and close friend of Edward Said...
.
- http://www.democracynow.org/static/said.shtmlTribute and archive of Said's Democracy Now!
Democracy Now! is a syndicated program of news, analysis, and opinion aired by more than 700 radio and television, satellite and cable TV networks in North America...
appearances]
- "Edward W. Said, 1935 - 2003" Memorial tribute to Said on the first anniversary of his death.
- Talk at Berkeley on "Palestine and the Universality of Human Rights". Hosted on tucradio.org: Part 1, Part 2. Single downloadable file with Lecture by Edward Said (mp3 file in compressed rar format).
- "The Rootless Cosmopolitan", obituary by Tony Judt
Tony Judt is a British historian, author and university professor. He specializes in European history and is the Erich Maria Remarque Professor in European Studies at New York University and Director of NYU's Erich Maria Remarque Institute. He is a frequent contributor to the New York Review of...
published in The Nation.
- Edward Said and The Production of Knowledge, by Sethi, Arjun (University of Maryland) April 2007
- "Remembering Edward Said (1935-2003)," obituary and tribute by Tariq Ali published in The New Left Review.
- Mural Debate: Moratorium Resembles 1994 Malcolm X Incident Controversy over Edward Said's Mural proposed for the student center at San Francisco State Universtity.
- 1980 review by Malcolm Kerr
Malcolm Hooper Kerr was a political scientist and teacher who was an expert on Middle East politics. His best known book is The Arab Cold War; Gamal Abd al-Nasir and His Rivals, 1958-1970.-Early life:...
, in International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, of Said's book Orientalism.
- Review of Reflections on Exile and Other Essays and Edward Said: The Last Interview, in Other Voices
Other Voices is a peer-reviewed, open access, electronic journal of cultural criticism and cultural studies founded in 1996 at the University of Pennsylvania. Other Voices publishes interdisciplinary essays, interviews, roundtable discussions, lecture transcriptions, audio and video lectures,...
, vol. 3, no. 1.
- Edward Said interview by Democracy Now!
Democracy Now! is a syndicated program of news, analysis, and opinion aired by more than 700 radio and television, satellite and cable TV networks in North America...
Critical
- Edward Said article by David Frum
David J. Frum is a Canadian-born conservative journalist active in both the United States and Canadian political arenas. A former economic speechwriter for President George W. Bush, he is also the author of the first "insider" book about the Bush presidency...
published in National ReviewNational Review is a biweekly magazine and web site, founded by the late author William F. Buckley, Jr. in 1955 and based in New York City...
, September 29, 2003, re-posted on Campus WatchCampus Watch is a web-based project of the Middle East Forum, a think tank in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It "reviews and critiques Middle East studies in North America with an aim to improving them."...
- Debunking Edward Said criticism of Orientalism by Ibn Warraq
Ibn Warraq is the pen name of a secularist author of Pakistani origin who founded the Institute for the Secularisation of Islamic Society. He is a senior research fellow at the Center for Inquiry focusing on Qur'anic criticism...
- Edward Said's Splash Said's impact on Middle Eastern studies, by Martin Kramer
Martin Seth Kramer is an American scholar of the Middle East at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the Shalem Center, and Harvard University's National Security Studies Program...
.
- "Edward Said's Documented Deceptions" by pro-Israel group CAMERA
thumb |right|Cameras from Large to Small, Film to Digital A camera is a device that records images, either as a still photograph or as moving images known as videos or movies...
- Edward W. Said, intellectual by Bruce Bawer
Bruce Bawer is an American literary critic, writer and poet.-Works:Bawer's works have appeared in journals such as The New Republic, The Nation, Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, The New Criterion, The American Spectator and The Hudson Review...
, The Hudson ReviewThe Hudson Review is a quarterly journal of literature and the arts. It was founded in 1947 in New York by William Ayers Arrowsmith, Joseph Deericks Bennett, and George Frederick Morgan. The first issue was introduced in the spring of 1948...
, Winter 2002
- Where the Twain Should Have Met by Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Eric Hitchens is an English-American author, journalist, and literary critic. He has been a columnist at Vanity Fair, The Atlantic, World Affairs, The Nation, Slate, Free Inquiry, and a variety of other media outlets...
, The Atlantic MonthlyThe Atlantic is an American magazine founded as The Atlantic Monthly in Boston in 1857. It was created as a literary and cultural commentary magazine. Though based in Boston, it quickly achieved a national reputation, which it held for more than a century. It was important for recognizing and...
, September 2003 (theatlantic.com subscriber excerpt)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Said, Edward}}