Edward Said Dies



I am at a conference and cannot make a long entry today, but wanted to express my condolences to the family and friends of Edward Said, among the greatest scholars of the twentieth century. A Palestinian-American intellectual who illuminated for us everything from Joseph Conrad's fiction to the impact of empire on the British novel, to the rhetoric of Orientalism as a racist enterprise. Edward was controversial, but he was always true to his calling as a progressive. His death diminishes us all. But the cosmic balance is such that his life enriched us even more.