Has anyone ever read anything by Edward Said?

[OmahaBlueDog]

Good? Bad?

On edit: I got a recommendation from someone that I like, but don't have much in common with in terms of taste in writing.

[MrScorpio]

1. About 20 years ago

On the Gulf war


He's pretty good

[no name no slogan]

2. Excellent stuff, with a much needed perspective

Said was a Christian Palestinian-- a group often caught between a rock and a hard place in the political situation of Israel/Palestine. His stuff is definitely worth a read.

[Aristus]

3. No, but I've said a lot by Edward Read.

:rofl:

[jobycom]

4. Good. He was a strong voice in how Islamic cultures were portrayed.

"Orientalism," for instance, demonstrated that our views of the Middle East and Islam were deliberately shaped to create a difference between east and west, in order to demonstrate western superiority over the east for political and cultural and economic regions. Similar to Chomsky, in some ways, in trying to expose the mechanisms by which a political system creates an image of another system in order to control that system.

It's been too long since I've read him, so I can't explain it better than that, but worth the read. Very relevant to the way the media portrays eastern and Islamic cultures.

[wickerwoman]

5. He did some great post-911 articles for Counterpunch

and I read Orientalism ages ago but I think it's a bit dated now.

[Drunken Irishman]

6. What did Edward say?

[litlady]

7. He is required reading for most graduate study in the humanities...

Good is his text Orientalism as it explains and exposes inherent prejudice the West has of the East. Even takes an early look at the perception of the Middle East as terrorists etc.

Not so good perhaps are some of his more recent articles where politics largely overtook his theory and literary criticism. He was very much pro-Palestine and wrote some pretty fierce articles.

Said has many critics but he was certainly an essential figure in postcolonial theory and is widely read in humanities study.

[OmahaBlueDog]

8. Thanks, everyone

I guess I might have to read some of this....actually, I was hoping you'd all compare him to Ayn Rand or Ann Coulter.