Edward W. Said
Edward W. Said
Edward Wadie Said was a professor of literature at Columbia University, a public intellectual, and a
founder of the academic field of postcolonial studies. A Palestinian American born in Mandatory
Palestine, he was a citizen of the United States by way of his father, a U.S. Army veteran.
Educated in the Western canon, at British and American schools, Said applied his education and bi-
cultural perspective to illuminating the gaps of cultural and political understanding between the Western
world and the Eastern world, especially about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the Middle East; his
principal influences were Antonio Gramsci, Frantz Fanon, Aimé Césaire, Michel Foucault, and Theodor
Adorno.
As a cultural critic, Said is known for the book Orientalism (1978), a critique of the cultural
representations that are the bases of Orientalism—how the Western world perceives the Orient. Said’s
model of textual analysis transformed the academic discourse of researchers in literary theory, literary
criticism, and Middle-Eastern studies—how academics examine, describe, and define the cultures
being studied. As a foundational text, Orientalism was controversial among the scholars of Oriental
Studies, philosophy, and literature.
As a public intellectual, Said was a controversial member of the Palestinian National Council, because
he publicly criticized Israel and the Arab countries, especially the political and cultural policies of Muslim
régimes who acted against the national interests of their peoples. Said advocated the establishment of
a Palestinian state to ensure equal political and human rights for the Palestinians in Israel, including the
right of return to the homeland. He defined his oppositional relation with the status quo as the remit of
the public intellectual who has “to sift, to judge, to criticize, to choose, so that choice and agency return
to the individual” man and woman.
In 1999, with his friend Daniel Barenboim, Said co-founded the West–Eastern Divan Orchestra, based
in Seville, which comprises young Israeli, Palestinian, and Arab musicians. Besides being an academic,
Said also was an accomplished pianist, and, with Barenboim, co-authored the book Parallels and
Paradoxes: Explorations in Music and Society (2002), a compilation of their conversations about music.
Edward Said died of leukemia on 25 September 2003.
