Edward Said

Edward Wadie Said (/sɑːˈiːd/; Arabic: إدوارد وديع سعيد, romanized: Idwārd Wadīʿ Saʿīd, [wædiːʕ sæʕiːd]; 1 November 1935 – 24 September 2003) was a Palestinian-American professor of literature at Columbia University, a public intellectual, and a founder of the academic field of postcolonial studies. 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 criti...