Examine individual changes

'{{Infobox philosopher<!-- Philosopher category --> |region = [[Western Philosophy]] |era = [[20th-century philosophy]] |color = #B0C4DE <!-- Information --> | name=Edward Saïd | image = Edward Said.jpg | size = 250px | caption = Edward Wadie Saïd | birth_date = {{Birth date|1935|11|1}} | birth_place = [[Jerusalem]], [[British Mandate of Palestine]] | death_date = {{death date and age|2003|9|25|1935|11|1}} | death_place = [[New York City]], [[New York]], [[United States]] | religion = [[Palestinian Christians|Christianity]] |school_tradition = [[Postcolonialism]], [[Postmodernism]] |notable_ideas = [[Occidentalism]], [[Orientalism]], [[Other|"The Other"]] | influences = [[Jacques Derrida|Derrida]], [[Giambattista Vico|Vico]], [[William Shakespeare|Shakespeare]], [[Gerard Manley Hopkins|Hopkins]], [[Antonio Gramsci|Gramsci]], [[Theodor Adorno|Adorno]], [[Joseph Conrad|Conrad]], [[R. P. Blackmur|Blackmur]], [[Raymond Williams|Williams]], [[Michel Foucault|Foucault]], [[Noam Chomsky|Chomsky]]. | influenced = [[Hamid Dabashi]], [[Homi K. Bhabha]], [[John Esposito]], [[Gayatri Spivak]], [[Christopher Hitchens]], [[Robert Fisk]], [[Mahmood Mamdani]], [[Rashid Khalidi]], [[Joseph Massad]], [[Nigel Gibson]], [[Derek Gregory]], [[Partha Chatterjee]], [[Ranajit Guha]]. }} {{Palestinians}} Let's all go out and shoot the kulaks on behalf of Comrade Stalyn! --Ro.land R.an.ce '''Edward Wadie Saïd''' ({{IPA-ar|wædiːʕ sæʕiːd}} {{lang-ar|<big>إدوارد وديع سعيد</big>}}, {{transl|ar|'''Idwārd Wadīʿ Saʿīd'''}}; 1 November 1935 &ndash; 25 September 2003) was a [[Palestinian American]] [[terrorist]] and advocate for [[Palestinian people|Palestinian]] rights. He was [[University Professor]] of English and Comparative Literature at [[Columbia University]] and a founding figure in [[postcolonialism]].<ref name="ryoung">Robert Young, ''White Mythologies: Writing History and the West'', New York & London: Routledge, 1990.</ref> [[Robert Fisk]] described him as the Palestinians' "most powerful political voice."<ref>Robert Fisk, [http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-why-bombing-ashkelon-is-the-most-tragic-irony-1216228.html "Why bombing Ashkelon is the most tragic irony"], ''The Independent'', 12 December 2008. Retrieved 4 January 2010.</ref> Said was an influential [[cultural critic]] and author, known best for his book ''[[Orientalism (book)|Orientalism]]'' (1978), which catapulted him to international academic fame.<ref>Martin Kramer, [http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/735 "Edward Said, Malcolm Kerr, and Honors at AUB"]. 26 June 2003. Accessed 5 January 2010.</ref> The book presented his influential ideas on [[Orientalism]], the [[Western civilization|Western]] study of [[Eastern world|Eastern]] cultures. Said contended that Orientalist scholarship was and continues to be inextricably tied to the [[imperialism|imperialist]] societies that produced it, making much of the work inherently politicized, servile to power, and therefore suspect. Grounding much of this thesis in his intimate knowledge of [[colonialism|colonial]] literature such as the fiction of [[Joseph Conrad|Conrad]], and in the [[post-structuralism|post-structuralist theory]] of [[Michel Foucault|Foucault]], [[Jacques Derrida|Derrida]] and others, Said's ''Orientalism'' and following works proved influential in literary theory and criticism, and continue to influence several other fields in the humanities. ''Orientalism'' affected [[Middle Eastern studies]] in particular, transforming the way practitioners of the discipline describe and examine the [[Middle East]].<ref name="newhumanist">Stephen Howe, [http://newhumanist.org.uk/1908 "Dangerous mind?"], ''New Humanist'', Vol. 123, November/December 2008</ref> Said came to discuss and vigorously debate the issue of Orientalism with scholars in the fields of history and [[area studies]], many of whom disagreed with his thesis, including most famously [[Bernard Lewis]].<ref>Oleg Grabar, Edward Said, Bernard Lewis, [http://www.nybooks.com/articles/6517 "Orientalism: An Exchange"], ''New York Review of Books'', Vol. 29, No. 13. 12 August 1982. Accessed 4 January 2010.</ref> Said also came to be known as a public [[intellectual]] who frequently discussed contemporary politics, music, culture, and literature, in lectures, newspaper and magazine columns, and books. Drawing on his own experience as a Palestinian growing up in a [[Palestinian Christian]] family in the Middle East at the time of the creation of [[Israel]], Said argued for the creation of a [[Proposals for a Palestinian state|Palestinian state]], equal rights for Palestinians in Israel, including the [[right of return]], and for increased pressure on Israel, especially by the United States. He also criticized several Arab and Muslim regimes.<ref>Richard Bernstein, [http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/26/arts/edward-w-said-literary-critic-advocate-for-palestinian-independence-dies-67.html?pagewanted=2 "Edward Said, Literary Critic and Advocate for Palestinian Independence, Dies at 67"], ''New York Times''. 26 September 2003. Accessed 5 January 2010.</ref> Having received a Western education in the US, where he lived from his high school years until his death, Said tried to use his dual heritage, the subject of his prize-winning memoir ''Out of Place'' (1999), to bridge the gap between the West and the Middle East and to improve the [[Israeli-Palestinian conflict|situation in Israel-Palestine]]. He was a member of the [[Palestinian National Council]] for over a decade and his pro-Palestinian activism made him a figure of considerable controversy.<ref>Andrew N. Rubin, [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2501/is_4_26/ai_n13562961/ "Edward W. Said"], ''Arab Studies Quarterly'', Fall 2004: p.1. Accessed 5 January 2010.</ref> With his friend [[Daniel Barenboim]], Said co-founded the award-winning [[West-Eastern Divan Orchestra]], made up of children from Israel, the Palestinian territories, and surrounding Arab nations. It opened in 1999. Said was also an accomplished [[pianist]].<ref name="democracy">Democracy Now!, [http://www.democracynow.org/features/edward_said "Edward Said Archive"], DemocracyNow.org, 2003. Accessed 4 January 2010.</ref> In 2002, he and Barenboim published a book of their earlier conversations on music, titled ''Parallels and Paradoxes: Explorations in Music and Society''. Active until his last months, Said died in 2003 after a decade-long battle with [[leukemia]]. ==Early life== [[File:SaidSis.jpg|thumb|left|150px|Edward Said and sister, [[Rosemarie Said Zahlan|Rosemarie]] 1940]] Said was born in [[Jerusalem]] (then in the [[British Mandate of Palestine]]) on November 1, 1935.<ref name=Time>{{cite news |first=Robert |last=Hughes |title=Envoy to Two Cultures |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,978727,00.html |publisher=''Time'' |date=1993-06-21 |accessdate=2008-10-21}}</ref> His father, a US citizen with [[Protestant]] [[Palestinian Christians|Palestinian]] origins, was a businessman and had served under [[General Pershing]] in [[World War I]]. He moved to [[Cairo]] in the decade before Edward's birth. His mother, born in [[Nazareth]], also had a Protestant background<ref name="protestant">{{Cite book |title=Palestine |author=Joe Sacco |year=2001 |publisher=Fantagraphics}}</ref><ref>Amritjit Singh, ''Interviews With Edward W. Said'' (Oxford: UP of Mississippi, 2004) 19 & 219.</ref> and was half-[[Lebanese people|Lebanese]].<ref>Edward Said, ''[http://www.counterpunch.org/said2.html Defamation, Revisionist Style]'', ''CounterPunch'', 1999. Accessed 7 February 2010.</ref> His sister was the historian and writer [[Rosemarie Said Zahlan]]. Said lived "between worlds" in both [[Cairo]] and [[Jerusalem]] until age 12.<ref name="Between%2520Worlds"/> He claims to have attended the [[Church of England|Anglican]] [[St. George's School, Jerusalem|St. George's Academy]] in 1947 in Jerusalem, but this has been a matter of some dispute.{{#tag:ref|One critic, [[Justus Weiner]],<ref>Craig Offman, ''[http://www.salon.com/books/log/1999/09/10/weiner/ Said critic blasts back at Hitchens]'', ''Salon.com'', 10 September 1999. Accessed 5 February 2010.</ref> asserted that Said's formative years were spent in Egypt where his family's business was located, and that Said "probably" did not attend St. George's Academy in Jerusalem, except briefly. There is no official record of his attendance in the school registry books from the period. Weiner said that cast doubt on Said's qualification to contribute to the debate over the dispossession of Arabs before Israel's founding in 1948. Weiner said he did not interview Edward Said. Asked about this, he said that after conducting research that lasted three years, he saw no need to talk to Said about his memories or his childhood: "The evidence became so overwhelming. It was no longer an issue of discrepancies. It was a chasm. There was no point in calling him up and saying, 'You're a liar, you're a fraud.'" Three journalists and one historian wrote that Weiner's claims are false. [[Alexander Cockburn]] and [[Jeffrey St. Clair]] of ''[[Counterpunch (newsletter)|Counterpunch]]'' interviewed Haig Boyadjian, who reported telling Weiner that he had been Said's classmate at St. George's, a fact Weiner omitted mentioning <ref>Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, ''[http://www.counterpunch.org/said1.html Commentary: 'Scholar' Deliberately Falsified Record in Attack on Said]'', ''[[Counterpunch (newsletter)|Counterpunch]]'' September 1, 1999, accessed February 10, 2006.</ref> In ''The Nation'', [[Christopher Hitchens]] wrote that schoolmates and teachers confirmed Said's stay at St. George's,<ref>Christopher Hitchens, ''[http://www.thenation.com/doc/19990920/hitchens The "Commentary" School of Falsification]'', ''The Nation'', 2 September 1999. Accessed 6 February 2010.</ref> and quoted Said stating, that in 1992, Said had spent much of his youth in Cairo.<ref>{{cite news| url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/1999/aug/23/israel | work=The Guardian | location=London | title=Friends rally to repulse attack on Edward Said | first=Julian | last=Borger | date=23 August 1999 | accessdate=1 May 2010}}</ref> [[Amos Elon]], 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."<ref>[http://www.nybooks.com/articles/218 ‘Exile’s Return’ by Justus Reid Weiner | The New York Review of Books<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> In reply, Weiner accused Elon of dishonesty, and Hitchens of making himself "into a poster boy for Palestine."<ref>[http://www.salon.com/books/log/1999/09/10/weiner/ Said critic blasts back at Hitchens - Christopher Hitchens - Salon.com<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> Said observed that the publishers of ''[[Commentary (magazine)|Commentary]]'', a conservative magazine, had attacked him in three long articles and that Weiner's was the third in the series.<ref>[http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/1999/444/op2.htm]</ref><ref>[http://www.counterpunch.org/said2.html Said's full reply to ''Commentary'' on his childhood]</ref> Said commented that the article about his early life was "undercut by dozens of mistakes of fact."<ref>Amritjit Singh, ''Interviews with Edward W. Said (Conversations With Public Intellectuals Series).'' Oxford: University Press of Mississippi, 2004: pp. 19 & 219.</ref>|group="nb"}} As the [[Arab League]] declared war on Israel in 1947/[[1948 Arab-Israeli War|1948]], his family moved from the neighborhood of [[Talbiya]] in Jerusalem and returned to Cairo. In a ''London Review of Books'' article, Said gave a more detailed account of his upbringing: {{cquote|With an unexceptionally [[Arab]] 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. To make matters worse, Arabic, my native language, and English, my school language, were inextricably mixed: I have never known which was my first language, and have felt fully at home in neither, although I dream in both. Every time I speak an English sentence, I find myself echoing it in Arabic, and vice versa.<ref name="Between%2520Worlds">Edward Said, ''[http://www.lrb.co.uk/v20/n09/said01_.html Between Worlds]'', ''London Review of Books'', May 07 1998.</ref>}} In 1951, Said was expelled from Victoria College for being a "troublemaker",<ref name="Between%2520Worlds"/> and was consequently sent by his parents to [[Mount Hermon School]], a private college preparatory school in [[Massachusetts]], where he recalls a "miserable" year of feeling "out of place".<ref name="Between%2520Worlds"/> 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'.<ref name="Between%2520Worlds"/> Though these themes of interweaving cultures, feeling out of place, and being far from home affected him dissonantly and would echo through Said's work for the rest of his life, Said managed to do well at the Massachusetts boarding school often 'achieving the rank of either first or second in a class of about a hundred and sixty'.<ref name="Between%2520Worlds"/> Fluent in [[English language|English]], [[French language|French]], and [[Arabic language|Arabic]],<ref>Edward Said, ''Out of Place'', Vintage Books, 1999: pp. 82-83.</ref> Said earned a [[Bachelor of Arts]] (1957) from [[Princeton University]], and a [[Master of Arts (postgraduate)|Master of Arts]] (1960) and a Ph.D. (1964) in [[English Literature]] from [[Harvard University]].<ref>Encyclopædia Britannica Online, [http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/516540/Edward-Said ''Edward Said''], accessed 03 January 2010.</ref> ==Career== In 1963, Saïd joined the faculty of [[Columbia University]], in the departments of English and Comparative Literature, where he would serve until his death in 2003. In 1974 he was Visiting Professor of Comparative Literature at Harvard, in 1975-6 Fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Science at Stanford, and in 1977, Saïd became the Parr Professor of English and [[Comparative Literature]] at Columbia and subsequently became the Old Dominion Foundation Professor in the Humanities. In 1979, Saïd was Visiting Professor of Humanities at Johns Hopkins University.<ref name="lajewsforpeace%252Eorg">LA Jews For Peace, [http://www.lajewsforpeace.org/Bibliography.html ''The Question of Palestine by Edward Saïd. (1997)''] ''Books on the Israel-Palestinian Conflict - Annotated Bibliography'', accessed 3 January 2010.</ref> Saïd was also a visiting professor at [[Yale University]] and lectured at more than 100 universities.<ref>Dr. Farooq, [http://www.globalwebpost.com/farooqm/study_res/edward_said/banners.html ''Study Resource Page''], Global Web Post, accessed on 3 January 2010.</ref> In 1992, he attained the rank of University Professor, Columbia's highest academic position.<ref>Columbia University Press, ''About the Author'', Humanism and Democratic Criticism, 2004.</ref> He lived near campus in [[The Colosseum (apartment building)|The Colosseum]] on [[Riverside Drive]]. Saïd also served as president of the [[Modern Language Association]], editor of the ''Arab Studies Quarterly'', and was a member of the [[American Academy of Arts and Sciences]], the executive board of [[International PEN|PEN]], the [[American Academy of Arts and Letters]], the [[Royal Society of Literature]], the Council of Foreign Relations,<ref name="lajewsforpeace%252Eorg"/> and the [[American Philosophical Society]].<ref>Moustafa Bayoumi and Andrew Rubin, eds., ''The Edward Saïd Reader'', Vintage, 2000, pp. xv.</ref> Saïd's writing regularly appeared in ''[[The Nation (U.S. periodical)|The Nation]]'',<ref name="nationarchive">''The Nation'', [http://www.thenation.com/directory/bios/edward_w_said "Edward W. Saïd."] Thenation.com. Accessed 5 January 2010.</ref> ''[[The Guardian]]'',<ref name="nationarchive" /> the ''[[London Review of Books]]'',<ref>''London Review of Books'', [http://www.lrb.co.uk/contributors/edward-said "Edward Saïd."] Lrb.org. 2003. Accessed 5 January 2010.</ref> ''[[Le Monde Diplomatique]]'',<ref>''Le Monde Diplomatique'', [http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/dossiers/edwardsaid/ "Edward W. Saïd."] Dossier. Monde-diplomatique.fr. Accessed 5 January 2010.</ref> ''[[Counterpunch (newsletter)|Counterpunch]]'',<ref>CounterPunch, [http://www.counterpunch.org/archives.html "CounterPunch Archives."] Counterpunch.org. Accessed 5 January 2010.</ref> ''[[Al Ahram]],''<ref>''Al Ahram'', [http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/657/edsaid.htm "The death of Edward Saïd."] Ahram.org. 2003. Accessed 5 January 2010.</ref> and the pan-Arab daily ''[[al-Hayat]]''.<ref name="nationarchive" /> The themes of his writings included literature, politics, the Middle East, music, and culture. ==Literary criticism== After expanding on his thesis to produce his first book, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=M5FIrrLKXDIC&printsec=frontcover&dq=joseph+conrad+and+the+fiction+of+autobiography&source=bl&ots=vnpUe9y6AI&sig=BtO4NN-U1zIvqQZ5AOhg7tgBs_g&hl=en&ei=Bcd9TKiOIcHhnAeTj4WdCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CCYQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q&f=false Joseph Conrad and the Fiction of Autobiography]'' (1966), Said, swirling with a wealth of ideas which he received from studying the works of [[Giambattista Vico]] and others, presented his award-winning second book, ''[[Beginnings: Intention and Method]]'' (1974), a work on the theoretical underpinnings of literary critical projects.<ref>Edward Said, ''Power, Politics and Culture'', Bloomsbury Publishing, 2001: pp. 77-79.</ref> Other literary critical texts by Said include ''The World, the Text, and the Critic'' (1983), ''Nationalism, Colonialism, and Literature: Yeats and Decolonization'' (1988), ''[[Culture and Imperialism]]'' (1993), ''Representations of the Intellectual: The 1993 Reith Lectures'' (1994), and the posthumous ''Humanism and Democratic Criticism'' (2004) and ''On Late Style'' (2006). Fascinated, like his [[postmodern]] influences, with how people perceive things in cultural contexts, and by the effects of society, politics and power on literature, Said is considered a founder of [[Postcolonial literature|postcolonial criticism]]. His work on Orientalism is particularly important, but his interpretations of Conrad, [[Jane Austen]],<ref>Ibn Warraq, [http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm/frm/8722/sec_id/8722 "Jane Austen and Slavery"], ''New English Review'', July 2007. Accessed 4 January 2010.</ref> [[Rudyard Kipling]],<ref>Harish Trivedi, [http://www.uoft.asiapacificreader.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=37126&Itemid=36 "'Arguing with the Himalayas': Edward Said and Rudyard Kipling"] ''Asia Pacific Reader'' archive. University of Toronto. Accessed 4 January 2010.</ref> [[W.B. Yeats|Yeats]],<ref>Andy Morrison, [http://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/SchoolofEnglish/imperial/ireland/saidyeat.htm "Theories of Post-Coloniality: Edward W. Said and W.B. Yeats"], ''MA studies'', Queen's University of Belfast, 21 May 1998. Accessed 4 January 2010.</ref> and other writers have also proven influential among critics. === “Orientalism” === Said is most famous for describing and critiquing "[[Orientalism]]", which he perceived as a constellation of false assumptions underlying [[Western world|Western]] attitudes toward the [[Middle East|East]]. In his most famous book, ''[[Orientalism (book)|Orientalism]]'' (1978), Said claimed a "subtle and persistent [[Eurocentrism|Eurocentric]] prejudice against Arabo-Islamic peoples and their culture."<ref name="newcriterion%252Ecom">Keith Windschuttle, [http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/17/jan99/said.htm "Edward Said's "Orientalism revisited,"] The New Criterion January 17, 1999, accessed January 19, 1999.</ref> He argued that a long tradition of false and romanticized images of [[Asia]] and the [[Middle East]] in [[Western culture]] had served as an implicit justification for [[Europe]] and the US' colonial and imperial ambitions. Just as fiercely, he denounced the practice of Arab elites who [[internalization|internalized]] the US and British orientalists' ideas of [[Arabic culture]]. {{cquote|So far as the United States seems to be concerned, it is only a slight overstatement to say that [[Stereotypes of Arabs and Muslims|Moslems and Arabs are essentially seen as either oil suppliers or potential terrorists]]. 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 world]]. 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]].<ref>Edward W. Said, [http://www.thenation.com/doc/19800426/19800426said "Islam Through Western Eyes,"] ''The Nation'' April 26, 1980, first posted online January 1, 1998, accessed December 5, 2005.</ref>}} In ''Orientalism'', the book, Said asserted that much western study of Islamic civilization was political intellectualism bent on self-affirmation rather than objective study,<ref>Edward Said, ''Orientalism'', Vintage Books, New York, 1979: p. 12.</ref> a form of racism, and a tool of [[imperialism|imperialist]] domination.<ref name="newcriterion%252Ecom"/> ''Orientalism'' had an impact on the fields of [[literary theory]], [[cultural studies]] and [[human geography]], and to a lesser extent on those of history and oriental studies. Taking his cue from the work of [[Jacques Derrida]] and [[Michel Foucault]], and from earlier critics of western Orientalism such as [[Abdul Latif Tibawi|A. L. Tibawi]],<ref>A. L. Tibawi, "English-speaking Orientalists: A Critique of Their Approach to Islam and Arab Nationalism", ''Islamic Quarterly'' 8 (1964): pp. 25–45.</ref> Anouar Abdel-Malek,<ref>Anouar Abdel-Malek, "L’orientalisme en crise", ''Diogène'' 44 (1963), pp. 109–41.</ref> [[Maxime Rodinson]],<ref>"Bilan des études mohammadiennes", ''Revue Historique'' 465.1 (1963).</ref> and Richard William Southern,<ref>Richard William Southern, ''Western views of Islam in the Middle Ages'' (1978; Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1962).</ref> 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):<ref>Ian Buruma, [http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jun/16/middleeast.islam "Orientalism today is just another form of insult"], ''The Guardian'', 16 June 2008. Accessed 5 January 2010.</ref> {{cquote|I doubt if it is controversial, for example, to say that an Englishman in [[India]] 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.<ref>''Orientalism'': p. 11.</ref>}} Said argued that the West has stereotyped the East in art and literature, since antiquity – such as the composition of ''The Persians'' by [[Aeschylus]].<ref>''Orientalism'': pp. 56–57.</ref> Even more so in modern times, Europe has dominated Asia politically so that even the most outwardly objective Western texts on the East were permeated with a bias that Western scholars could not recognize. Western scholars appropriated the task of exploration and interpretation of the Orient’s languages, history and culture for themselves, with the implication that the East was not capable of composing its own narrative. 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.<ref>''Orientalism'': pp. 38–41.</ref> Said concluded 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.<ref>''Orientalism'': pp. 65–67.</ref> In 1978, when the book was first published, with memories of the [[Yom Kippur war]] and the [[OPEC]] crisis still fresh, Said argued that these attitudes still permeated the Western media and academia.<ref>''Orientalism'': "Afterword," pp. 329-352.</ref> After stating the central thesis, ''Orientalism'' consists mainly of supporting examples from Western texts. ====Criticism==== ''Orientalism'' and other works by Said sparked a wide variety of controversy and criticism.<ref>Martin Kramer, [http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/3082 "Enough Said (review of Robert Irwin, ''Dangerous Knowledge'')"], March 2007. Retrieved 5 January 2010.</ref> [[Ernest Gellner]] 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 Empire]] had posed a serious threat to Europe.<ref>Ernest Gellner, "The Mightier Pen? Edward Said and the Double Standards of Inside-out Colonialism" (rev. of ''Culture and Imperialism'' by Edward Said), ''Times Literary Supplement'', 19 February 1993: pp. 3–4.</ref> Mark Proudman notes that Said had claimed that the [[British Empire]] extended from Egypt to India in the 1880s, when in fact the Ottoman and [[History of Iran|Persian Empires]] intervened.<ref>Mark F. Proudman, "[http://canadianreview.ca/MFP/Proudman%20-%20JHS%20-%20Disraeli%20and%20Said.pdf Disraeli as an Orientalist: The Polemical Errors of Edward Said]," ''Journal of the Historical Society'', 5 December 2005.</ref> 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.<ref>C.A. Bayly ''Empire and Information'', Delhi: Cambridge UP, 1999: pp. 25, 143, 282.</ref> 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 Raj]] in India, and Russia’s dominions in Asia, because Said was more interested in making political points about the Middle East.<ref>Robert Irwin ''For Lust of Knowing: The Orientalists and Their Enemies'' (London: Allen Lane, 2006: pp. 159–60, 281-2).</ref> Strong criticism of Said's critique of ''Orientalism'' came from academic Orientalists, including some of Eastern backgrounds. [[Albert Hourani]], [[Robert Graham Irwin]], [[Nikki Keddie]], [[Bernard Lewis]],<ref>Bernard Lewis, "The Question of Orientalism", ''Islam and the West'', London, 1993: pp. 99, 118.</ref><ref>Robert Irwin, ''For Lust of Knowing: The Orientalists and Their Enemies'', London: Allen Lane, 2006.</ref> and [[Kanan Makiya]] addressed what Keddie retrospectively calls "some unfortunate consequences" of Said's ''Orientalism'' on the perception and status of their scholarship.{{#tag:ref|Martin Kramer wrote that "Fifteen years after publication of ''Orientalism'', the UCLA historian [[Nikki Keddie]], whose work Said had praised in ''Covering Islam'', allowed that ''Orientalism'' was 'important and in many ways positive.'<ref>[http://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http://www.geocities.com/martinkramerorg/SaidSplash.htm&date=2009-10-26+02:20:28 "Said’s Splash"] ''Ivory Towers on Sand: The Failure of Middle Eastern Studies in America'', Policy Papers 58 (Washington, D.C.: Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2001).</ref> But, in an interview, Keddie said that she also thought Said's work on Orientalism had had "unfortunate consequences." She continued: {{cquote|I think that there has been a tendency in the Middle East field to adopt the word "orientalism" as a generalized swear-word essentially referring to people who take the "wrong" position on the Arab-Israeli dispute or to people who are judged too "conservative". It has nothing to do with whether they are good or not good in their disciplines. So "orientalism" for many people is a word that substitutes for thought and enables people to dismiss certain scholars and their works. I think that is too bad. It may not have been what Edward Said meant at all, but the term has become a kind of slogan.<ref>''Approaches to the History of the Middle East'', ed. Nancy Elizabeth Gallagher, London: Ithaca Press, 1994: pp. 144–45.</ref>}}|group="nb"}} 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".<ref>''Orientalism'': pp. 315</ref> Lewis answered with several essays in response, and was joined by other scholars, such as [[Maxime Rodinson]], [[Jacques Berque]], [[Malcolm Kerr (academic)|Malcolm Kerr]], [[Aijaz Ahmad]], and [[William Montgomery Watt]], who also regarded ''Orientalism'' as a deeply flawed account of Western scholarship.<ref>Aijaz Ahmad, ''In Theory: Classes, Natures, Literatures'', London: Verso, 1992.</ref> 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 [[Johann Wolfgang von Goethe|Goethe]] (who never travelled in the East), the novelist [[Flaubert]] (who briefly toured [[Egypt]]), [[Ernest Renan]] (whose work is widely regarded as tainted by racism), and on the other scholars such as [[Edward William Lane]] who was fluent in [[Arabic]].<ref>Robert Irwin, [http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/the_tls/article3885948.ece "Edward Said's shadowy legacy"], ''Times Literary Supplement'', 7 May 2008. Accessed 5 January 2010.</ref> According to these critics, their common European origins and attitudes overrode such considerations in Said's mind; Said constructed a stereotype of Europeans.<ref>Ibn Warraq, ''Defending the West: A Critique of Edward Said's Orientalism'', 2007.</ref> The critic Robert Irwin writes that Said ignored the domination of 19th century Oriental studies by [[Germans]] and [[Hungarian people|Hungarian]]s, from countries that did not possess an Eastern empire.<ref>Irwin, ''For Lust of Knowing'': pp. 8, 150–166.</ref> Such critics accuse Said of creating a monolithic "[[Occidentalism]]" to oppose to the "Orientalism" of Western discourse, arguing that he failed to distinguish between the paradigms of [[Romanticism]] and the [[Enlightenment in Western secular tradition|Enlightenment]]; 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 Jones (philologist)|William Jones]]) 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.<ref>O.P. Kejariwal, ''The Asiatic Society of Bengal and the Discovery of India’s Past'', Delhi: Oxford UP, 1988: pp. ix-xi, 221–233.</ref> 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 Doom]]'') and academic studies of Oriental languages, literature, history and culture by Western scholars (whom, it is argued, they tar with the same brush).<ref>Edward Said, "Afterword" to the 1995 ed. of ''Orientalism'': p. 347.</ref><ref>Kaizaad Navroze Kotwal, [http://www.thefilmjournal.com/issue12/templeofdoom.html "Steven Spielberg's Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom as Virtual Reality: The Orientalist and Colonial Legacies of Gunga Din,"] ''The Film Journal'' no. 12, April 2005.</ref> 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 "[[Subaltern (post-colonialism)|Subaltern]]".<ref>Biswamoy Pati, [http://www.jstor.org/pss/3518106 "Review: Who Is Afraid of Edward Said?"]. ''Social Scientist'', Vol. 27. No. 9/10 (Sept.–Oct. 1999), pp. 79.</ref> 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 [[academia]], 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"<ref>''Orientalism'': p. 272</ref> 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 [[solipsism]]",<ref>D.A. Washbrook, "Orients and Occidents: Colonial Discourse Theory and the Historiography of the British Empire", in ''Historiography'', vol. 5 of ''The Oxford History of the British Empire'' 607.</ref> unable to talk of anything but "representations", and denying the existence of ''any'' objective truth. ====Supporters==== 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.<ref>Terry Eagleton, [http://www.newstatesman.com/200602130032 ''Eastern Block'' (book review of Robert Irwin's ''For Lust of Knowing'')], ''New Statesman'', 13 February 2006.</ref> His supporters point out that Said himself acknowledges limitations of his study's failing to address German scholarship<ref>''Orientalism'', pp: 18–19</ref> and that, in the "Afterword" to the 1995 edition of ''Orientalism'', he, in their view, convincingly refutes his critics, such as Lewis.<ref>''Orientalism'': pp. 329–54</ref> ''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.'"<ref name="ruthven">Malise Ruthven, [http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2003/sep/26/guardianobituaries.highereducation "Obituary: Edward Said"], ''The Guardian'', 26 September 2003.</ref> Said's importance in the fields of literary criticism and cultural studies is represented by his influence on scholars studying India, such as [[Gyan Prakash]],<ref>Gyan Prakash, “Writing Post-Orientalist Histories of the Third World: Perspectives from Indian Historiography,” ''Comparative Studies in Society and History'' 32.2 (1990): 383–408.</ref> [[Nicholas Dirks]],<ref>Nicholas Dirks, ''Castes of Mind'', Princeton: Princeton UP, 2001.</ref> and [[Ronald Inden]],<ref>Ronald Inden, ''Imagining India'', New York: Oxford UP, 1990.</ref> and Cambodia, such as Simon Springer,<ref>Simon Springer, “Culture of violence or violent Orientalism? Neoliberalisation and imagining the ‘savage other’ in post-transitional Cambodia,” ''Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers'' 34.3 (2009): 305–319.</ref> and literary theorists such as [[Hamid Dabashi]], [[Homi K. Bhabha|Homi Bhabha]]<ref>Homi K. Bhaba, ''Nation and Narration'', New York & London: Routledge, Chapman & Hall, 1990.</ref> and [[Gayatri Spivak]].<ref>Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, ''In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics'', London: Methuen, 1987.</ref> His work continues to be widely discussed in academic seminars, disciplinary conferences, and scholarship.<ref name="newhumanist"/> ===Influence=== 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,<ref>Martin Kramer. Ivory Towers on Sand.</ref> his supporters praise his influence as liberating.<ref>Andrew N. Rubin, "Techniques of Trouble: Edward Said and the Dialectics of Cultural Philology," The South Atlantic Quarterly, 102.4 (2003): 862-876.</ref> [[Postcolonial theory]], of which Said is regarded as a founder and a figure of continual relevance,<ref name="ryoung"/> continues to attract interest and is a thriving field in the humanities.<ref>Emory University, Department of English, [http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Intro.html Introduction to Postcolonial Studies]</ref> ''Orientalism'' continues to profoundly inform the field of [[Middle Eastern studies]].<ref name="newhumanist"/> He was a prominent public intellectual in the United States, praised widely as an "intellectual superstar," engaging in [[music criticism]], public lectures, [[political commentary|media punditry]], contemporary politics, and musical performance.<ref name="ruthven"/> His breadth of influence is regarded as "genuinely global," resting on his unique and innovative blend of [[cultural criticism]], politics, and literary theory.<ref name="newhumanist"/> [[Barack Obama]] was among Said's students when Obama was an undergraduate at Columbia in the early 1980s.<ref name="F01">[[Dinesh D'Souza|D'Souza, Dinesh]], [http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/0927/politics-socialism-capitalism-private-enterprises-obama-business-problem_print.html "How Obama Thinks"], ''Forbes'' magazine, 9.27.10. Cited in Michael D. Shear, [http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/13/gingrich-president-exhibits-kenyan-anti-colonial-behavior/?hp "Gingrich: President Exhibits ‘Kenyan, Anticolonial Behavior’"], ''The New York Times'' "Caucus" blog, September 13, 2010, 10:02 am. Retrieved 2010-09-13.</ref> In May 1998, then Illinois state senator Obama and his wife Michelle sat with Said and his wife at an Arab community event in Chicago at which Said gave the keynote speech. The report in which the Chicago event was included discussed the politician's efforts to address the Palestinian cause, though the writer's dominant theme—in 2007—was that Obama had adopted the Israeli cause and neglected the Palestinian one.<ref>[[Ali Abunimah|Abunimah, Ali]], [http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article6619.shtml "How Barack Obama learned to love Israel"], ''[[The Electronic Intifada]]'', 4 March 2007. Caption to image "from archives of Ali Abunimah." Retrieved 2010-09-24.</ref> ==Music== Being not only an avid music lover, but also an accomplished pianist,<ref>Encyclopædia Britannica Online, [http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/516540/Edward-Said ''Edward Said''], accessed 3 January 2010.</ref> Said wrote extensively about music, including being the music critic for ''[[The Nation]]'' for several years,<ref>Bloomsbury Publishing, ''A Note on the Author''; Power, Politics and Culture; 2004.</ref> and writing three books on music: ''Musical Elaborations'', ''Parallels and Paradoxes: Explorations in Music and Society'' (with the Argentine-Israeli conductor [[Daniel Barenboim]]), and his last book, ''On Late Style: Music and Literature Against the Grain''. In music, Said often saw a reflection of his ideas on literature and history, and he would find real life possibilities in bold composition and performance. A posthumous collection of essays was published in 2007 by Columbia University Press, entitled ''Music at the Limits''.<ref>Ranjan Ghosh, [http://www.ewidgetsonline.com/dxreader/Reader.aspx?token=lHNy0CN9jdX%2fkV3%2f8IVtAA%3d%3d&rand=1414102986&buyNowLink= ''Edward Said and the Literary, Social, and Political World''], New York: Routledge, 2009: p. 22.</ref><ref>Columbia University Press, [http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-13936-6/music-at-the-limits ''Music at the Limits'' by Edward W. Said''], accessed 5 January 2010.</ref> The music of Arab American composer [[Mohammed Fairouz]] has been deeply influenced by the writings of Said. Fairouz's First Symphony references the essay ''Homage to a Belly Dancer'' and his Piano Sonata is titled ''Reflections on Exile'' after the collection of essays by Said.<ref name=qonstage>Rase, Sherri (April 8, 2011), [http://www.qonstage.com/QOnStage_articles/2011fairouz-rase/index.html Conversations—with Mohammed Fairouz], ''[Q]onStage'', retrieved 2011-04-19</ref> [[File:Diván Este-Oeste 2005.jpg|thumb|right|225px|The [[West-Eastern Divan Orchestra]] conducted by [[Daniel Barenboim]]]] In 1999, Said jointly founded the [[West-Eastern Divan (orchestra)|West-Eastern Divan Orchestra]] with Barenboim. The award-winning youth orchestra is made up of musicians from Israel, Palestine, and the surrounding Arab countries, and has performed internationally, including within both Israel and Palestine. Said and Barenboim also worked together to establish The Barenboim-Said Foundation in [[Seville]]. The government-funded foundation was eventually constituted in 2004 with its purpose being to develop several "education through music" projects. In addition to managing the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, the Barenboim-Said Foundation assists with other projects such as the Academy of Orchestral Studies, the Musical Education in Palestine project and the Early Childhood Musical Education Project in Seville.<ref>Barenboim-Said Foundation, [http://www.barenboim-said.org/index.php?id=119 official website], Barenboim-Said.org. Accessed 4 January 2010.</ref> ==Politics== ===Pro-Palestinian activism=== Throughout his adult life, Said involved himself in the effort for Palestinians statehood. From 1977 until 1991, he was an independent member of the [[Palestinian National Council]].<ref>Malise Ruthven, [http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,1049931,00.html "Edward Said: Controversial Literary Critic and Bold Advocate of the Palestinian Cause in America,"] ''The Guardian'' September 26, 2003, accessed March 1, 2006.</ref> He was also an early proponent of a [[two-state solution]] and, in 1988, voted for the establishment of the [[State of Palestine]] at a [[Palestinian National Council]] meeting in [[Algiers]]. In 1991, he quit the PNC in protest over the process leading up to the signing of the [[Oslo Accords]], feeling that the terms of the accord were unacceptable and had been rejected by the [[Madrid Conference of 1991|Madrid round negotiators]]. 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.<ref>Edward Said, [http://www.lrb.co.uk/v15/n20/edward-said/the-morning-after "The Morning After"]. ''London Review of Books'' Vol. 15 No. 20. 21 October 1993.</ref> In particular, he wrote that Arafat had sold short the right of Palestinian [[refugee]]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 in 1995 that PA leaders banned the sale of his books,<ref>Michael Wood, [http://www.lrb.co.uk/v25/n20/michael-wood/on-edward-said "On Edward Said"], ''London Review of Books'', 23 October 2003, accessed 5 January 2010.</ref> but improved when he hailed Arafat for rejecting [[Ehud Barak]]'s offers at the [[Camp David 2000 Summit]].<ref>Edward Said, [http://www.mediamonitors.net/edward33.html "The price of Camp David"], ''Al Ahram Weekly'', 23 July 2001. Accessed 5 January 2010.</ref> In an article entitled ''Zionism from the Standpoint of its Victims'', he argued for the legitimacy and authenticity of 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.<ref>Edward Said, "Zionism from the Standpoint of Its Victims" (1979). In ''The Edward Said Reader'', Vintage Books, 2000, pp. 114-168.</ref> Said's books on the issue of Israel and the Palestinians 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.<ref>Edward Said, "Orientalism, an Afterward." ''Raritan'' 14:3 (Winter 1995).</ref>}} A photograph taken on July 3, 2000, of Said in South Lebanon throwing a stone across the [[Blue Line (Lebanon)|Lebanon-Israel border]] drew criticism from some political and media commentators, some of whom decried the act as "terrorist sympathizing.".<ref>Julian Vigo, "Edward Said and the Politics of Peace: From Orientalisms to Terrorology," A Journal of Contemporary Thought, (2004): pp. 43-65.</ref> Said explained the act as a stone-throwing contest with his son, and called it a ''symbolic gesture of joy'' at the end of Israel's occupation of Lebanon. "It was a pebble. There was nobody there. The guardhouse was at least half a mile away."<ref name="nytimes%252Ecom">Dinitia Smith, [http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/10/arts/a-stone-s-throw-is-a-freudian-slip.html?scp=1&sq=%22edward+said%22&st=nyt ''A Stone's Throw is a Freudian Slip''], The New York Times, 10 March 2001.</ref> Although he denied aiming the rock at anyone, an eyewitness account in the Lebanese newspaper ''[[As-Safir]]'' asserted that Said had been less than {{convert|30|ft|m}} from Israeli soldiers manning a two-story [[watchtower]] when he aimed the rock over the border fence, though it instead hit barbed-wire.<ref>Sunnie Kim, [http://www.columbiaspectator.com/2000/07/19/edward-said-accused-stoning-south-lebanon ''Edward Said Accused of Stoning in South Lebanon''], Columbia Spectator, 19 July 2000.</ref> While the photo provoked criticism from some [[Columbia University]] faculty members, some students, and from the [[Anti-Defamation League]] of B'nai B'rith, the Columbia provost issued a five-page letter defending Said's act on the grounds of [[freedom of expression]]: "To my knowledge, the stone was directed at no one; no law was broken; no indictment was made; no criminal or civil action has been taken against Professor Said."<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/19/nyregion/19COLU.html?ex=1176523200&en=ea585e33b37df5f2&ei=5070|title=Columbia Debates a Professor's 'Gesture'|publisher=The New York Times|author=Karen W. Arenson|date=October 19, 2000}}</ref> Said said that there were repercussions, however, noting that in February 2001 the Freud Society of Vienna cancelled an invitation for him to give a lecture.<ref>Edward Said and David Barsamian, ''Culture and Resistance-Conversations with Edward Said'', [[South End Press]], 2003: pp. 85-86</ref> The president of the Freud Society cited "the political situation in the Middle East and its consequences" as a reason, going on to explain that anti-Semitism "has become more dangerous" in Austrian politics and that the Society had decided on the cancellation "to avoid an internal clash."<ref name="nytimes%252Ecom"/> Said made a documentary film about Palestine for [[BBC]] named ''In Search of Palestine''.<ref>[http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/title/591708 BFI | Film & TV Database | IN SEARCH OF PALESTINE (1998)<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> BBC was unsuccessful in getting it on U.S. television.<ref>[http://books.google.com/books?id=rVxWOkkkFMwC&dq=interview+with+edward+said&q=IN+SEARCH+OF+PALESTINE#v=snippet&q=IN%20SEARCH%20OF%20PALESTINE&f=false Culture and resistance: conversations with Edward W. Said] By Edward W. Said, David Barsamian, P.57</ref> In ''Culture and Resistance'' (2003), Said likened his situation to that of [[Noam Chomsky]]: "It's very similar to him. He's a well known, great linguist. He's been celebrated and honored for that. But he's also vilified as an anti-Semite and a Hitler worshiper." Said went on to explain: {{cquote|For anyone to deny the horrendous experience of anti-Semitism and the Holocaust is unacceptable. We don't want anybody's history of suffering to go unrecorded and unacknowledged. On the other hand, there's a great difference between acknowledging Jewish oppression and using that as a cover for the oppression of another people.<ref>Edward Said and David Barsamian, ''Culture and Resistance-Conversations with Edward Said'', [[South End Press]], 2003: pp. 85, 178</ref>}} In 2003, Said, along with [[Haidar Abdel-Shafi]], Ibrahim Dakak, and [[Mustafa Barghouti]], helped establish the [[Palestinian National Initiative]], or ''Al-Mubadara'', an attempt to build a third force in Palestinian politics, a democratic, reformist alternative to [[Fatah]] and [[Hamas]]. Three years later, in January 2006, anthropologist David Price obtained 147 pages of Said's 238-page [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] file through a [[Freedom of Information Act (United States)|Freedom of Information Act]] request. The records reveal that Said was under FBI surveillance as early as 1971. No records were available on the last dozen years of his life.<ref>David Price, [http://www.counterpunch.org/price01132006.html "How the FBI Spied on Edward Said,"] ''CounterPunch'' January 13, 2006, accessed January 15, 2006.</ref> ===Criticism of US foreign policy=== In a 1997 revised edition of his book ''[[Covering Islam]]'', 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.”<ref>Martin Kramer, [http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/3082 ''Enough Said (review of Robert Irwin, Dangerous Knowledge)''], March 2007.</ref> Said opposed many US foreign policy endeavors in the Middle East and elsewhere. He critiqued US involvement in [[Kosovo War|Kosovo]] and [[Iraq Liberation Act|Iraq]] under [[Bill Clinton|President Clinton]],<ref name="democracy" /> and US support for Israel was a constant topic that he addressed in his activism. Although growing increasingly weak from his battle with leukemia, Said spent many of his last months speaking out against the then recent [[2003 invasion of Iraq|invasion of Iraq]].<ref>Democracy Now!, [http://www.democracynow.org/2003/4/15/syrian_expert_patrick_seale_and_columbia "Syrian Expert [[Patrick Seale]] and Columbia University Professor Edward Said Discuss the State of the Middle East After the Invasion of Iraq"], DemocracyNow.org, 15 April 2003. Accessed 4 January 2010.</ref> In an April 2003 interview with ''[[Al-Ahram Weekly]]'', 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. [[Marc Grossman|US Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman]] and [[Douglas Feith|US Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith]] 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 [[Afghanistan]]. I think they hope that the [[United Nations|UN]] will come in and do something, but given the recent French and Russian positions I doubt that that will happen with such simplicity.<ref>Said, Edward.[http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/631/focus.htm "Resources of hope ,"] Al-Ahram Weekly, April 2, 2003, accessed April 26, 2007.</ref>}} ==Death and tributes== [[File:Poster of Edward Said.jpg|thumb|right|250px|An [[Palestinian National Initiative|al-Mubadara]] memorial poster of Edward Said on the [[Israeli West Bank wall]].]] Edward Said died at age 67 in the early morning of September 25, 2003, in [[New York City]], after a 12 year-long battle with [[chronic lymphocytic leukemia]].<ref>Columbia News, [http://www.columbia.edu/cu/news/03/09/edwardSaid_2.html ''Columbia Community Mourns Passing of Edward Said''], 23 September 2003</ref> He was survived by his wife of 33 years, Mariam (née Cortas); a son, Wadie, and a daughter, Najla.<ref>Mark Feeney, [http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2003/09/26/edward_said_critic_scholar_palestinian_advocate_at_67/ ''Edward Said, critic, scholar, Palestinian advocate; at 67''], ''The Boston Globe'', 26 September 2003.</ref><ref>Malise Ruthven, ''[http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2003/sep/26/guardianobituaries.highereducation Obituary-Edward Said]'', ''The Guardian'', 26 September 2003. Accessed 14 January 2010.</ref> Subsequently, several prominent writers published elegies for Said, including [[Alexander Cockburn]],<ref>Alexander Cockburn, [http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn09252003.html "A Mighty and Passionate Heart"], ''Counterpunch''</ref> [[Christopher Hitchens]],<ref>Christopher Hitchens, [http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200309/hitchens "Where the Twain Should Have Met"] ''The Atlantic Monthly'', September 2003</ref> [[Tony Judt]],<ref>Tony Judt, [http://www.thenation.com/doc/20040719/judt "The Rootless Cosmopolitan"], ''The Nation''</ref> [[Michael Wood (academic)|Michael Wood]],<ref>Michael Wood, [http://www.lrb.co.uk/v25/n20/michael-wood/on-edward-said ''On Edward Said''], ''London Review of Books'', 23 October 2003, accessed 5 January 2010.</ref> and [[Tariq Ali]].<ref>Tariq Ali, [http://www.newleftreview.org/NLR25804.shtml "Remembering Edward Said (1935-2003)"], ''The New Left Review''</ref> In November 2004, [[Birzeit University]] renamed its music school as the [[Edward Said National Conservatory of Music]] in Said's honor.<ref>Birzeit University, [http://ncm.birzeit.edu/ ''Edward Said National Conservatory of Music''].</ref> In 2008, Verso Books published ''Waiting for the Barbarians: A Tribute to Edward W. Said'', a book of essays by 15 authors, including [[Akeel Bilgrami]], [[Rashid Khalidi]] and [[Elias Khoury]]. The book was edited by Müge Gürsoy Sökmen and Bașak Ertür.<ref>[http://ejts.revues.org/index931.html "Conference: Waiting for the Barbarians: A Tribute to Edward Said."] 25–26 May 2007. Bogazici University. ''European Journal of Turkish Studies''. Ejts.org. Accessed 5 January 2010.</ref><ref>Jorgen Jensehausen, [http://jpr.sagepub.com/cgi/pdf_extract/46/3/458 "Review: 'Waiting for the Barbarians.'"] ''Journal of Peace Research'' Vol. 46 No. 3 May 2009. Accessed 5 January 2010.</ref> A critical memoir, ''Edward Said: the charisma of criticism,'' by [[H. Aram Veeser]] was published by Routledge in March 2010. In August 2010, the University of California Press published a large volume of essays by some 29 authors about every aspect of Said's intellectual contributions. Edited by [[Adel Iskandar]] and Hakem Rustom, ''Edward Said: A Legacy of Emancipation and Representations'' includes interviews with Noam Chomsky, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, and Daniel Barenboim, as well as the writings of Joseph Massad, Jacqueline Rose, Avi Shlaim, Ilan Pappe, Ella Shohat, Asha Varadhjan, RR Radhakrishnan, Ardi Imseis, Ghada Karmi, Sabry Hafez and many others. ===Edward Said memorial lectures=== {{Main|List of Edward Said memorial lectures}} Since Said's death in 2003, several institutions have instituted annual lecture series in his memory, including [[Columbia University]], [[University of Warwick]], [[Princeton University]], [[University of Adelaide]], [[American University of Cairo]], and [[Palestine Center]], with such notables speaking as [[Daniel Barenboim]], [[Noam Chomsky]], [[Robert Fisk]], and [[Cornel West]]. ==Bibliography== {{Main|Edward Said bibliography}} ==Awards== Besides being honored with memberships and posts to several prestigious organizations and institutions, Said was the recipient of twenty honorary degrees from universities around the world.<ref>The English Pen World Atlas, [http://penatlas.org/online/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=100&Itemid=16 "Edward Said"], accessed on 3 January 2010.</ref> Said was the recipient of [[Harvard University]]'s Bowdoin Prize. He received the Lionel Trilling Award (twice), the first occasion being the first time the award was given. He also received the Wellek Prize of the [[American Comparative Literature Association]], and the inaugural [[Baruch Spinoza|Spinoza]] Lens Award.<ref>Spinozalens, [http://www.spinozalens.nl/pages/laureaten_en.htm ''Internationale Spinozaprijs Laureates''], accessed on 3 January 2010.</ref> In 2001, Said received the [[Lannan Literary Award]] for Lifetime Achievement. In 2002, he received the Prince of Asturias Award for Concord, and he was the first U.S. citizen to receive the Sultan Owais prize.<ref>Columbia University Press, "About the Author", ''Humanism and Democratic Criticism'', 2004.</ref> His autobiography, ''Out of Place'', won him the 1999 [[The New Yorker|New Yorker]] Book Award for Non-Fiction; the 2000 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Non-Fiction; and the Morton Dauwen Zabel Award in Literature.<ref>The English Pen World Atlas, [http://penatlas.org/online/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=100&Itemid=16 ''Edward Said''], accessed on 3 January 2010.</ref> Said Was named an honorary patron of the [[University Philosophical Society]], [[Trinity College, Dublin]] in 2003, shortly before his death. Honorary Degree at [http://www.iss.nl/ The International Institute of Social Studies] (ISS): Orientalism once more (2003) / Edward W. Said / The Hague: ISS, 2003. Lecture delivered on the occasion of the awarding of the degree of Doctor Honoris Causa on the 50th anniversary of the Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, The Netherlands, 21 May 2003. ==See also== {{Portal|Biography}} *[[Blaming the Victims]] *[[List of Columbia University people]] *[[Palestinian Christians]] *[[Projects working for peace among Arabs and Israelis]] ==Notes== <references group="nb" /> ==References== <!--See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Footnotes for an explanation of how to generate footnotes using the<ref> and </ref> tags and the tag below --> {{Reflist|2}} ==Further reading== *Kennedy, Valerie. ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=EYMQ44XjIegC&dq=critical+introduction+edward+said&source=gbs_navlinks_s Edward Said: A Critical Introduction]''. Key Contemporary Thinkers. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2000. *McCarthy, Conor. ''[http://www.cambridge.org/aus/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521683050 The Cambridge Introduction to Edward Said]''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. *Rubin, Andrew N., ed. ''Humanism, Freedom, and the Critic: Edward W. Said and After''. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2005. {{Good article}} ==External links== {{Commons category}} {{wikiquote}} * [http://www.edwardsaid.org/?q=node/1 The Edward Said Archive] * [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgSELKDXLhE BBC Orientalism documentary] * "Palestine and the Universality of Human Rights." Lecture given at [[University of California, Berkeley|UC Berkeley]]. [http://www.tucradio.org/0908SaidONE.mp3 Part 1], [http://www.tucradio.org/0915SaidTWO.mp3 Part 2]. * [http://www.npr.org/programs/wesat/transcripts/2002/dec/021228.simon2.html "Barenboim and Said: 'Parallels and Paradoxes"]. Interview with Scott Simon on ''Weekend Edition Saturday'' (2002-12-28, [[National Public Radio]]). * [http://www.democracynow.org/2001/3/14/new_york_times_casts_stones_at ''Democracy Now!'' interview with Edward Said (2001-3-14)] * [http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/edwardsaid Edward Said] at ZMagazine.org * [http://electronicintifada.net/bytopic/people/118.shtml Edward Said] at The Electronic Intifada * {{imdb name|id=0756429|name=Edward Said}} * [http://othervoices.org/3.1/bvanderlinden/index.php Review of ''Reflections on Exile and Other Essays'' and ''Edward Said: The Last Interview''], in ''[[Other Voices (open-access journal of cultural criticism)|Other Voices]]'', vol. 3, no. 1. * {{OL_author|id=OL26322A}} * [http://www.iss.nl/About-ISS/History/Edward-Wadie-Said Edward Wadie Said] at the International Institute of Social Studies {{Persondata <!-- Metadata: see [[Wikipedia:Persondata]]. --> | name=Said%252C Edward | ALTERNATIVE NAMES = | SHORT DESCRIPTION = | DATE OF BIRTH = 1 November 1935 | PLACE OF BIRTH = [[Jerusalem]], [[British Mandate of Palestine]] | DATE OF DEATH = 25 September 2003 | PLACE OF DEATH = [[New York City]], [[New York]], [[United States]] }} {{DEFAULTSORT:Said, Edward}} [[Category:American Middle Eastern studies]] [[Category:American political writers]] [[Category:Postcolonial literature]] [[Category:Postcolonialism]] [[Category:Islamic politics and Islamic world studies]] [[Category:Anti-Zionism]] [[Category:American literary critics]] [[Category:American agnostics]] [[Category:American humanists]] [[Category:American writers of Arab descent]] [[Category:Arab Christians]] [[Category:American people of Palestinian descent]] [[Category:Palestinian academics]] [[Category:Palestinian Christians]] [[Category:Harvard University alumni]] [[Category:Princeton University alumni]] [[Category:Columbia University faculty]] [[Category:Deaths from leukemia]] [[Category:1935 births]] [[Category:2003 deaths]] [[Category:American writers of Asian descent]] [[Category:People from Jerusalem]] [[Category:Scholars of nationalism]] [[Category:Palestinian Protestants]] [[Category:Cancer deaths in New York]] [[Category:American activists]] [[Category:Palestinian political writers]] [[Category:Palestinian literary critics]] [[Category:American orientalists]] [[ar:إدوارد سعيد]] [[zh-min-nan:Edward Said]] [[bg:Едуард Саид]] [[ca:Edward Said]] [[cs:Edward Said]] [[de:Edward Said]] [[et:Edward Said]] [[es:Edward Said]] [[eo:Edward Said]] [[fa:ادوارد سعید]] [[fr:Edward Said]] [[gd:Eideard Said]] [[ko:에드워드 사이드]] [[id:Edward Said]] [[it:Edward Saïd]] [[he:אדוארד סעיד]] [[ku:Edward Said]] [[lt:Edward Said]] [[mk:Едвард Саид]] [[ml:എഡ്വേർഡ്‌ സൈദ്‌]] [[nl:Edward Said]] [[ja:エドワード・サイード]] [[no:Edward Said]] [[nn:Edward Said]] [[pl:Edward Said]] [[pt:Edward Said]] [[ru:Саид, Эдвард Вади]] [[sc:Edward Said]] [[ckb:ئیدوارد سەعید]] [[fi:Edward Said]] [[sv:Edward Said]] [[tr:Edward W. Said]] [[uk:Едвард Ваді Саїд]] [[ur:ایڈورڈ سعید]] [[yo:Edward Said]] [[zh:爱德华·萨义德]]'