Edward Said died yesterday after a long battle with leukemia. From the Columbia University site:
- Edward W. Said, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, a member of the Columbia faculty since 1963 and University Professor since 1992, died on Thursday, September 25, at 6:45 a.m. One of the most influential scholars in the world, Said was also a devoted and beloved teacher to generations of Columbia students. The University mourns his passing.
President of Columbia Lee C Bollinger said:
"Edward Said was a man of enormous intellectual distinction. He was devoted to, and intimately engaged with, works of art, especially the novel and the poem. He was a humanist who believed that such study is essential to a good and meaningful life. And through his writings and teaching he transformed our sense of ourselves by forcing us in the Western world to confront the implicit assumptions we have about other peoples around the globe. His death is an irreplaceable loss to the realm of ideas and for those who believe in the redemptive power of the life of the mind.
University Provost Alan Brinkley said:
"Edward Said was a great scholar, a great teacher, and a beloved member of the Columbia community for 40 years. His many works on literature, theory, music, and politics have influenced generations of students and teachers around the world. Among many other things, he taught us new ways of looking at other cultures and invited us to take assumptions we are tempted to consider universal and place them in their particular social contexts. We will greatly miss this kind, gentle, and generous colleague and friend. It is hard to imagine Columbia without him."
Edward Said was born in Jerusalem in 1935, but spent most of his life in the United States. He received degrees from Princeton and Harvard before coming to Columbia, where he spent most of his adult life. His many books include Beginnings (1975); Orientalism (1978); The Question of Palestine (1980); Covering Islam (1981); The World, the Text and the Critic (1983); After the Last Sky (1986); Blaming the Victims (1987); Culture and Imperialism (1992), and The Politics of Dispossession (1995). His Wellek and Reith Lectures were published as, respectively, Musical Elaborations and Representations of the Intellectual. Peace and Its Discontents appeared in 1996, Out of Place: A Memoir in 1999, and The End of the Peace Process: Oslo and After in 2000. Reflections on Exile appeared in 2000, as well as The Edward Said Reader, and in 2001, Power, Politics, and Culture. His books are translated into 36 languages.
Article comments
1 - mike
The only thing "exceptional" about this critique is how exceptionally stupid it is. Bernard Lewis is a "scholar"? So is Bill O'Reilly!
I also found the the following racist and repulsive
(http://windsofchange.net/archives/004067.html). Imagine if this sort of diatribe was directed against a Jewish scholar.
Said wrote beautifully and is one of the most important literary critics in the history of the English language. He was a passionate and eloquent advocate for a binational secular state in Israel/Palestine, the only solution that can avert more bloodshed.
He had, as was said of Tresci, all the right enemies: Yassar Arafat, Ariel Sharon, the Arab dictatorships, the Baath leadership, the U.S. Zionist lobby, Bernard Lewis, the Wall Street Journal, Alan Dershowitz, Martin Kramer, the National Review. I would be proud to be hated by such scum. It is an honor I will never achieve.
2 - Eric Olsen
Mike, no one said he wasn't a fine literary scholar, but when he, almost exactly like Chomsky, got into politics, he became unhinged. Theorists often don't translate well to the real world, but that doesn't stop them from trying.
3 - mike
How was he "unhinged"? He stood up to Arafat at great personal risk to himself, since he was a frequent traveler to Palestine and the Arab world.
His criticisms of Arafat, Oslo, and Likkud have been vindicated, and how, by history. He was a fierce critic of suicide bombing and of the backwardness of Arab regimes. He promoted the emerging initiatives among Jews, Palestinians, and others for a campaign of non-violent civil disobedience to liquidate Israeli apartheid. He set a standard of courage and commitment few can equal.
I can say without hesitation that you have not read a single one of his political books, such as The Question of Palestine, or can articulate the core of his beliefs.
To paraphrase MLK: If Said was unhinged, God is unhinged. If Said was wrong, God is wrong.
4 - Eric Olsen
I have not read any of his books in said (no pun intended) form, but I have read hundreds of pages in excerpts, essays, etc - note the link I gave to his archive. I should recalibrate my hasty writing above about agreeing with him 0%, it's probably more like 15-20%. But the bottom line is his core philosophy is this: Palestinians right, Israel wrong.
5 - Natalie Davis
Is being opposed to Israel's government the qualification for being damned as "unhinged"? I'm with Mike.
6 - mike
Said's great sin, as one of his admirers ruefully noted, is that he was a child of immense wealth who took every advantage of opportunities offered him, and who, after achieving professional prominence, then decided to advocate on behalf of the world's most desperately poor people. In this country, that is one of the gravest offenses a person can make. It is un-American, in the very best sense of the word.
7 - Natalie Davis
Ooh, well said.
8 - Eric Olsen
Can be perfectly true but not make him right
9 - Natalie Davis
Doesn't necessarily make him wrong, either.
10 - directory
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