“Out of Place: A Memoir” by Edward Said — Absolutely Fascinating
It is hard now for me to pinpoint the moment when I became aware of the work of Edward Said and when it entered my personal and intellectual radars so to speak. (If interested in other posts on Edward Said, please see the post on On Being an Academic and a Public Intellectual and on Edward Said: Last Public Intellectual). Certainly, my first exposure to him was during my year in Oxford when I was trying to figure out who the Said Business School was named after. It turned out that there was another Said, someone who has nothing to do with the Said Business School, but who is a much more interesting man than the benefactor. But then my knowledge of Edward Said was limited by the odd fact I read that he was throwing stones at Israeli tanks somewhere in the Middle East, and at the same time, was an unlikely professor of English Literature at Columbia University. (more…)