Edward Said

Edward Wadie Said 1 November 1935 24 September 2003 was a Palestinian and American academic literary critic and political activist As a professor of literature at Columbia University he was among the founders of postcolonial studies As a cultural critic Said is best known for his book Orientalism 1978 a foundational text which critiques the cultural representations that are the bases of Orientalismhow the Western world perceives the Orient His model of textual analysis transformed the academic discourse of researchers in literary theory literary criticism and Middle Eastern studies