Joseph Andoni Massad is a Jordanian academic specializing in Middle Eastern studies, who serves as Professor of Modern Arab Politics and Intellectual History in the Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies at Columbia University. His academic work has focused on Palestinian, Jordanian, and Israeli nationalism.
Joseph Massad speaks at the University of Chile in 2014
Edward Wadie Said was a Palestinian-American philosopher, academic, literary critic, and political activist. As a professor of literature at Columbia University, he was among the founders of post-colonial studies. As a cultural critic, Said is best known for his book Orientalism (1978), a foundational text which critiques the cultural representations that are the bases of Orientalism—how the Western world perceives the Orient. His model of textual analysis transformed the academic discourse of researchers in literary theory, literary criticism, and Middle Eastern studies.
Said in Seville, Spain, 2002
Edward Said and his sister, Rosemarie Said dressed in traditional Arab clothing, 1940
The cover of the book Orientalism (1978) is a detail from the 19th-century Orientalist painting The Snake Charmer, by Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824–1904).
The idealized Oriental world of The Reception of the Ambassadors in Damascus (1511)