Edward Wadie Said (November 1, 1935 – September 24, 2003; ) was a well-known Palestinian-American literary theorist, critic, and outspoken pro-Palestinian activist. He was a professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University. He is regarded as a founding figure in post-colonial theory.

Life

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Said was born in Jerusalem (then in the British Mandate of Palestine). His father was a wealthy Christian Palestinian businessman and an American citizen, while his mother was born in Nazareth of Christian Lebanese and Palestinian descent . The historian and writer Rosemarie Said Zahlan was his sister. According to Said's autobiography, he lived between Cairo and Jerusalem until the age of 12 and, in 1947, he attended the Anglican St. George's Academy when he was in Jerusalem. According to Said, his extended family became refugees in 1948 during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War because the family home was in the affluent quarter of Talbiya in the western part of Jerusalem that was annexed by Israel. In 1998, Said wrote: "I was born in Jerusalem and had spent most of my formative years there and, after 1948, when my entire family became refugees, in Egypt." May 7, 1998.

At age 14, Said entered Victoria College in Cairo, and then Mount Hermon School in Massachusetts, the United States. He received his B.A. from Princeton University and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University, where he won the Bowdoin Prize. He joined the faculty of Columbia University in 1963 and served as a professor of English and Comparative Literature for several decades. Said became the Parr Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia, in 1977, and subsequently became the Old Dominion Foundation Professor in the Humanities. In 1992, Said attained the rank of University Professor, which is Columbia's most prestigious academic position. He also taught at Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and Yale universities. He spoke Arabic, English and French fluently and was literate in Spanish, German, Italian and Latin.

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NPR Topics: Politics & Society

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Sen. Barack Obama Obama was questioned about why he doesn't always wear a flag pin during a Democratic debate in April. His critics say his lack of pin casts doubt on Obama's patriotism, and recently the Democratic candidate has been wearing one.

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If you had stumbled into Banjo Jim’s, in the East Village, on a recent Wednesday night and encountered a sixty-something guy leading a band through a fervent rendition of “Wild Thing,” for an audience of two dozen or so, you might have concluded, “This is lame,” and slipped back . . .
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When bad things happen, it’s always nice to have a scapegoat. So, with Americans furious about soaring oil prices, Congress has gone in search of someone to blame. There are a number of usual suspects to choose from, depending on your politics--OPEC, greedy oil companies, lily-livered environmentalists opposed . . .
Obama’s Iraq Problem
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In February, 2007, when Barack Obama declared that he was running for President, violence in Iraq had reached apocalyptic levels, and he based his candidacy, in part, on a bold promise to begin a rapid withdrawal of American forces upon taking office. At the time, this pledge represented conventional thinking . . .

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