Edward Wadie Said ( November 1935 – 25 September 2003) was a Palestinian American literary theorist, cultural critic, political activist, and an outspoken advocate of Palestinian rights. He was University Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, and is a founding figure in postcolonial theory.
Life
Said was born in Jerusalem (then in the British Mandate of Palestine) on November 1, 1935. His father was a wealthy Protestant Palestinian businessman and an American citizen who had served under General Pershing in World War I, while his mother was born in Nazareth, also of Protestant[2] Christian Palestinian descent.[3] His sister was the historian and writer Rosemarie Said Zahlan.
Said referred to himself as a "Christian wrapped in a Muslim culture". He experienced much confusion growing up and was quoted as saying that:
With an unexceptionally Arab family name like Said connected to an improbably British first name (my mother much admired the Prince of Wales in 1935, the year of my birth), I was an uncomfortably anomalous student all through my early years: a Palestinian going to school in Egypt, with an English first name, an American passport and no certain identity at all.
According to Said's autobiographical memoir, Out of Place,[4] Said lived "between worlds" in both Cairo and Jerusalem until the age of 12. In 1947, he attended the Anglican St. George's Academy when he was in Jerusalem. However, his extended family became refugees in 1948 during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War when their neighborhood of Talbiya was captured by Jewish militia groups, along with the western part of Jerusalem, which became part of the State of Israel:
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. All my early education had, however, been in elite colonial schools, English public schools designed by the British to bring up a generation of Arabs with natural ties to Britain. The last one I went to before I left the Middle East to go to the United States was Victoria College in Alexandria, a school in effect created to educate those ruling-class Arabs and Levantines who were going to take over after the British left. My contemporaries and classmates included King Hussein of Jordan, several Jordanian, Egyptian, Syrian and Saudi boys who were to become ministers, prime ministers and leading businessmen, as well as such glamorous figures as Michel Shalhoub, head prefect of the school and chief tormentor when I was a relatively junior boy, whom everyone has seen on screen as Omar Sharif.
Said referred to himself as a "Christian wrapped in a Muslim culture". He experienced much confusion growing up and was quoted as saying that:
With an unexceptionally Arab family name like Said connected to an improbably British first name (my mother much admired the Prince of Wales in 1935, the year of my birth), I was an uncomfortably anomalous student all through my early years: a Palestinian going to school in Egypt, with an English first name, an American passport and no certain identity at all.
According to Said's autobiographical memoir, Out of Place,[4] Said lived "between worlds" in both Cairo and Jerusalem until the age of 12. In 1947, he attended the Anglican St. George's Academy when he was in Jerusalem. However, his extended family became refugees in 1948 during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War when their neighborhood of Talbiya was captured by Jewish militia groups, along with the western part of Jerusalem, which became part of the State of Israel:
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. All my early education had, however, been in elite colonial schools, English public schools designed by the British to bring up a generation of Arabs with natural ties to Britain. The last one I went to before I left the Middle East to go to the United States was Victoria College in Alexandria, a school in effect created to educate those ruling-class Arabs and Levantines who were going to take over after the British left. My contemporaries and classmates included King Hussein of Jordan, several Jordanian, Egyptian, Syrian and Saudi boys who were to become ministers, prime ministers and leading businessmen, as well as such glamorous figures as Michel Shalhoub, head prefect of the school and chief tormentor when I was a relatively junior boy, whom everyone has seen on screen as Omar Sharif.
Book: OrientalismMain article: Orientalism (book)Said is best known for describing and critiquing "Orientalism", which he perceived as a constellation of false assumptions underlying Western attitudes toward the East. In Orientalism (1978), Said described the "subtle and persistent Eurocentric prejudice against Arabo-Islamic peoples and their culture."[9] He argued that a long tradition of false and romanticized images of Asia and the Middle East in Western culture had served as an implicit justification for Europe and America's colonial and imperial ambitions. Just as fiercely, he denounced the practice of Arab elites who internalized the American and British orientalists' ideas of Arabic culture.
In 1980 Said criticized what he regarded as poor understanding of the Arab culture in the West:
So far as the United States seems to be concerned, it is only a slight overstatement to say that Moslems and Arabs are essentially seen as either oil suppliers or potential terrorists. Very little of the detail, the human density, the passion of Arab-Moslem life has entered the awareness of even those people whose profession it is to report the Arab world. What we have instead is a series of crude, essentialized caricatures of the Islamic world presented in such a way as to make that world vulnerable to military aggression.
In 1980 Said criticized what he regarded as poor understanding of the Arab culture in the West:
So far as the United States seems to be concerned, it is only a slight overstatement to say that Moslems and Arabs are essentially seen as either oil suppliers or potential terrorists. Very little of the detail, the human density, the passion of Arab-Moslem life has entered the awareness of even those people whose profession it is to report the Arab world. What we have instead is a series of crude, essentialized caricatures of the Islamic world presented in such a way as to make that world vulnerable to military aggression.
愛德華·沃第爾·薩義德 ( 1935年11月1日-2003年9月25日）
著名文學理論家與批評家，後殖民理論的創始人，也是巴勒斯坦立國運動的活躍分子。薩義德出生在耶路撒冷的一個阿拉伯基督教(英國聖公會）家庭，家境富有。他童年大多數時間在埃及開羅度過，從小就接受西式教育。1953年進入美國普林斯頓大學，取得學士學位後又在哈佛大學獲得碩士和博士學位。之後多年他在哥倫比亞大學擔任英語和比較文學教授，也曾執教於約翰霍普金斯大學、哈佛大學和耶魯大學。薩義德能夠講一口流利的英語、阿拉伯語和法語。此外他還是一名出色的鋼琴演奏家，音樂的造詣匪淺。
2003年9月，薩義德因白血病在紐約逝世。
著名文學理論家與批評家，後殖民理論的創始人，也是巴勒斯坦立國運動的活躍分子。薩義德出生在耶路撒冷的一個阿拉伯基督教(英國聖公會）家庭，家境富有。他童年大多數時間在埃及開羅度過，從小就接受西式教育。1953年進入美國普林斯頓大學，取得學士學位後又在哈佛大學獲得碩士和博士學位。之後多年他在哥倫比亞大學擔任英語和比較文學教授，也曾執教於約翰霍普金斯大學、哈佛大學和耶魯大學。薩義德能夠講一口流利的英語、阿拉伯語和法語。此外他還是一名出色的鋼琴演奏家，音樂的造詣匪淺。
2003年9月，薩義德因白血病在紐約逝世。
東方主義薩義德以他提出的東方主義最為世人所知，他認為這本書彙集了西方對東方的很多基本預設。他在1978年出版的《東方主義》一書中指出，19世紀西方國家眼中的東方社會沒有真實根據，而是憑空相象出來的東方，「西方世界對阿拉伯-伊斯蘭世界的人民和文化有一種微妙卻非常持久的偏見」。薩義德認為，西方文化中對中東和東方長期錯誤和浪漫化的印象為歐美國家的殖民主義提供了借口。這本書已經成為後殖民論述的經典與理論依據。他同時也嚴厲地批判阿拉伯知識精英內化internalized了英美東方主義學者對阿拉伯文化的觀點。
1980年薩義德批評了他認為是西方對阿拉伯文化的錯誤理解：
如果只考慮美國的情況，那麼我們可以稍有點誇張地說，穆斯林和阿拉伯人主要被看成是石油提供者和恐怖主義分子。幾乎所有的細節，比如人口密度，阿拉伯-穆斯林人的生活熱情等等議題從來沒有進入過那些以研究報告阿拉伯世界為職業的人的視野。我們能看到的不過是一個這樣的粗鄙和過於簡化了的阿拉伯世界，那個阿拉伯世界對於武力進攻毫無抵抗能力。
1980年薩義德批評了他認為是西方對阿拉伯文化的錯誤理解：
如果只考慮美國的情況，那麼我們可以稍有點誇張地說，穆斯林和阿拉伯人主要被看成是石油提供者和恐怖主義分子。幾乎所有的細節，比如人口密度，阿拉伯-穆斯林人的生活熱情等等議題從來沒有進入過那些以研究報告阿拉伯世界為職業的人的視野。我們能看到的不過是一個這樣的粗鄙和過於簡化了的阿拉伯世界，那個阿拉伯世界對於武力進攻毫無抵抗能力。
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