The University’s Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities (CRASSH) will be hosting a six-week visit during Michaelmas Term by Professor Edward Said (Columbia University). Professor Said will deliver a series of public lectures during his visit linked to CRASSH’s current theme, The Organization of Knowledge.

In his book Orientalism Professor Said made one of the most profound and lasting contributions to contemporary understandings of the relationship between power and knowledge and is a foundation text for postcolonial studies.

Professor Said is known as both a scholar of modern literature and theory and an expert on international and Middle Eastern politics. He is the author of more than 20 books and has been published in more than 35 languages. His books include The Question of Palestine; Covering Islam; Culture and Imperialism; Peace and Its Discontents: Essays on Palestine in the Middle East Peace Process; Entre Guerre et Paix (Between War and Peace); The End of the Peace Process: Oslo and After; Reflections on Exile and Other Essays; and Power, Politics and Culture. His latest book, Parallels and Paradoxes: Explorations in Music and Society, will be published later this year. His memoir, Out of Place, won many awards including the 1999 New Yorker Book Award for Non-Fiction; the Year 2000 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Non-Fiction; the Morton Dauwen Zabel Award in Literature conferred by the American Academy of Arts and Letters; and the 2001 Lannan Literary Award for Lifetime Achievement.

In addition to his academic work, he writes a twice-monthly column for Al-Hayat, a daily Palestinian newspaper, and Al-Ahram, an Egyptian daily newspaper; is a regular contributor to newspapers in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East; and is the music critic for The Nation. He serves on the editorial board of 20 journals, and is the general editor of a book series, Convergences, at Harvard University Press.

At Columbia since 1963, Prof. Said has also taught at Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Yale, Chicago; been a Fellow of Stanford's Center for Advanced Study in Behavioural Sciences; directed a 1978 NEH Seminar on Literary Criticism; given the 1977 Gauss Seminars at Princeton, 1985 Eliot Memorial Lectures at Kent, 1986 Messenger Lectures at Cornell and Frye Lectures at Toronto, 1991 Davie Academic Freedom Lecture at Cape Town, 1992 Camp Lectures at Stanford, and in 1993 the Northcliffe Lectures at the University of London, the Woolfson Lecture at Oxford, and BBC's Reith Lectures on the BBC, the Tanner Lectures at Utah, Empson Lectures at Cambridge. In 1999 he was President of MLA.

The lectures on Humanism and Knowledge will take place at 5pm in Lady Mitchell Hall on Thursday 24 and 31 October, and Thursday 7 and 14 November. Seating will be allocated on a first-come first-served basis.

Humanism and Knowledge

Thursday 24 October 'The Sphere of Knowledge'
Thursday 31 October 'The Changing Bases of Humanistic Study'
Thursday 7 November 'Return to Philology'
Thursday 14 November 'The Example of Auerbach's Mimesis'


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