Noted professor, Palestinian activist, Edward Said dies at 67

IU professors are mourning the loss of a colleague this week.\nEdward Said, a Columbia University professor and Palestinian activist, died Wednesday in Manhattan at the age of 67 from leukemia. His life touched many IU professors both personally and professionally.\nSaid, who was born in Jerusalem during the British mandate in Palestine, visited IU-Bloomington as a Patten lecturer in 1996. He was a member of the Palestinian National Council -- a parliament-in-exile -- from 1977 to 1991. His works spanned topics on literature, music, Middle Eastern politics and his own life.\nZaineb Istrabadi, lecturer in the Near Eastern Languages and Cultures Department and associate director of the Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies Program, worked as Said's assistant from 1986 to 2001. Aside from his scholarly work, Istrabadi said Said was involved with many causes. \n"He identified with the downtrodden, with the oppressed, and tried to speak for those who couldn't speak for themselves," she said.\nIstrabadi, who describes herself as being Said's "right hand" during their years together, said Said saw his scholarship, activism and personal life as "entwined."\n"He chose to become an activist scholar because he did not believe that you could divorce your life in the university from important issues, particularly when there were unjust things going on," she said.\nSaid's activism attracted praise as well as a lot of criticism. Some saw his support for Palestinian causes as bordering on anti-Semitic. \nA 1999 article in Commentary called him a "professor of terror." Others said Said's writing was faulty and somewhat biased. An obituary in the London Telegraph called his articles on Palestinian-Israeli relations "tendentious." \nChristopher Hitchens, in an article for The Atlantic Monthly completed before Said's death, said Said "chose a one-sided approach and employed rather a broad brush" in explaining the East to a Western audience.\nDespite these critical remarks, associate English professor Purnima Bose defended Said's activism.\n"Said was willing to and did criticize groups in the Third World," she said, referring to Said's disapproval of the tactics of Yasser Arafat and others. \n"He was one of the sharpest critics of U.S. policies in the Middle East in general," said Nazif Shahrani, chairman of IU's Near Eastern Languages and Cultures department. "He wasn't only criticizing the West and American policy -- he was equally critical of dictators in the Middle East." \nAssociate English professor Deidre Lynch described Said's activism as "very brave." \n"Every time he gave a lecture in the past ten years, there were security risks," Lynch said. "He had been threatened a number of times."\nKnown to many for his political activism, especially on behalf of Palestinian groups, Said was also a groundbreaking scholar whose ideas profoundly affected IU-Bloomington professors' work. Shahrani called Said "the founder of 'post-colonial studies.'" \n"With the publication of his book 'Orientalism,' he created this entire new field of looking critically at what imperialism has done to the Third World," Shahrani said.\nBose said she also recognizes the importance of Said's work. Remembering her undergraduate career, Bose said, in the early 1980s professors focused on the "great" books without evaluating authors' works in their historical and political context.\nBose said as a consequence of Said's work, she believes most English departments at major universities now have several people specializing in post-colonial studies. Shahrani said Said's writing comes as a surprise to students who have never been exposed to criticism of the classics. \n"It's a very different view. It's a critical view. It's one that raises the kind of issues that often the average college student hasn't come across," Shahrani said. "It kind of shocks them in some ways." \nIstrabadi reflected not only on Said's activism and scholarship, but also on his personality. She described Said as charming, funny and very learned, but also said he could be very demanding.\nIstrabadi said Said was a music lover and had a tremendous love for Richard Wagner, a 19th century German composer. \n"I remember his trying to convince me to go to the Metropolitan Opera to see 'The Ring Cycle,'" she said. When she refused, Istrabadi said he accused her of being a "musical reactionary."\nSaid's passion extended to the works he criticized, Istrabadi said. \n"You felt that when he talked about a literary work -- whether a novel by Jane Austen, a play by Oscar Wilde or an essay by Jonathan Swift -- that he had great passion and love for these works," she said. "It came through in his lectures and in class where he had his listeners mesmerized for the hour or hour and a half when he engaged you in his work." \nIstrabadi said although Said never brought his politics into the classroom, his office as the chairman of the Comparative Literature program at Columbia also served as a public relations office for issues in the Middle East.\nIstrabadi said she feels she received a "global education" from her years with Said.\nThe Associated Press contributed to this story. Contact staff writer Paul Musgrave at rpmusgra@indiana.edu.