Edward W. Said as an Arab Spokesperson

This book looks at the work of Edward W. Said, specifically his book 'Orientalism,' as making Said representative as a spokesperson for Arab concerns. Edward W. Said was born in 1935 in Palestine, then under British rule, to a Palestinian Arab Christian father and a Lebanese Greek Orthodox mother. He lived in Palestine and Egypt until he was 12 and then his family sent him to the US. After getting his undergraduate and graduate degrees at Princeton, he earned a Doctor of Philosophy degree in English Literature from Harvard University. In 1963, he joined Columbia University¿s Comparative Literature faculty and taught there until his death in 2003. He also worked as a visiting scholar at Yale University and John Hopkins University. The origins of Orientalism Snake charmers, carpet vendors, and veiled women may conjure up ideas of the Middle East, North Africa, and West Asia, but they are also partially indebted to Orientalist fantasies. To understand these images, we have to understand the concept of Orientalism, beginning with the word ¿Orient¿ itself.