Edward W. Said

This chapter focuses on the major intellectual contributions of Edward Said, many of which laid the foundations for what would become the field of postcolonial studies. Sections 16.1 and 16.2 explore Said’s views on how knowledge and power structure relations between Western imperial powers and non-Western states and societies, through critical readings of 'Orientalism' and 'Culture and Imperialism', respectively. Section 16.3 explores Said’s writings and activism as a spokesperson for Palestinian self-determination. The final section examines Said’s views on what it means to be a public intellectual. While Said’s ideas have become so influential as to be almost ubiquitous in cultural and postcolonial studies, the apparent familiarity of his ideas has allowed a forgetting of the nuance and complexity with which they were originally articulated. By offering a close re-reading of Said’s best-known texts, the chapter aims to encourage a more careful appreciation of the ideas that were central to his political thinking.