ABSTRACT
Edward W. Said was a literary critic and the Parr Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. Said’s work combined intellectual and political pursuits. Said’s work inaugurated the discourse of postcolonial theory. With the publication of his groundbreaking study Orientalism in 1978, Said focused attention on the issues of discourse and representation in the history of Western colonialism. In any cultural setting, there are dominant groups that establish what can and cannot be said and done; the discursive knowledge is wielded against others. Said critiques Eurocentric universalism for devising the binary opposition between the putative superiority of Western cultures and the inferiority of colonized, non-Western cultures. In discussions of contemporary art, the issues of globalization and the strong political bent of much of Said’s work have been of unparalleled importance. His call for a “secular humanist” criticism plays a key role in the advent of postmodernism.
