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'''Edward Said''' (1935-2003) was a [[Palestinian]]-American literary scholar and political activist on the left. He is best known for his 1978 book ''[[Orientalism]]''.
'''Edward Said''' (1935-2003) was a [[Palestinian]]-American literary scholar and political activist on the left. He is best known for his 1978 book ''[[Orientalism]]''.
Said was brought up a Christian (not Muslim), but became non-religious. He was educated in British schools in Egypt then at American prep schools, Princeton and Harvard; he spent his entire academic career at Columbia University in New York City; he was active in Palestinian politics. He was a leading scholar of English literature, but was not a specialist on the history of culture of Islam or the Middle East.
Said was brought up a Christian (not Muslim), but became non-religious. He was educated in British schools in Egypt then at American prep schools, Princeton and Harvard; he spent his entire academic career at Columbia University in New York City; he was active in Palestinian politics. He was a leading scholar of English literature, but was not a specialist on the history or the culture of Islam or of the Middle East.
In ''Oreientalism'' Said attacked and ridiculed all western scholarship on Islam and the Mideast, arguing it was all written in the service of imperialism. Said did not comment on whether anyone could deal honestly and fairly with Asia, for he was taking a general postmodern view that complete analysis is never possible, that Orientalism is misguided and uncritically "essentialist' when it assumes there is such as thing as the Orient in the first place.
In ''Oreientalism'' Said attacked and ridiculed all western scholarship on Islam and the Mideast, arguing it was all written in the service of imperialism. Said did not comment on whether anyone could deal honestly and fairly with Asia, for he was taking a general postmodern view that complete analysis is never possible, that Orientalism is misguided and uncritically "essentialist' when it assumes there is such as thing as the Orient in the first place.