I might as well say something.
Mark Weiss wrote:
> In a department noted for towering egos Said was famously arrogant and
> dismissive of anybody not in power who wasn't an epigone. I wasn't the only
> student who felt like popping him on occasion. Of course he was of a
> different social class than the rest of us, and I don't think he ever
> forgot that.
An old friend of mine from Binghamton became the first person from that "red
brick" institution to get hired into Columbia University, right out of our
Ph.D. program, in 1975. I don't recall whether he encountered Said during the
interview process or shortly after he entered Hamilton Hall, but he and Said
took to each other, I suspect partially because my friend came from a working
class South Philadelphia Italian family and got to where he got by irritating
the hell out of an establishment that still included guys like Trilling,
Kroeber, et al. "Beginnings: Intention and Method" absolutely escaped me, but
"The Question of Palestine" and "Orientalism" I found riveting. The latter
particularly I got to think of as Gramsci for people who never heard of
Gramsci.
My friend left Columbia in 1980 for an appointment at the University of
Pittsburgh. He's still there. He maintained a friendship at some level with
Said, as did other people in the Pitt English Department who'd either been at
Columbia or were recruited by my friend when he got the "juice" to influence
hiring decisions. The Old Deconstructionists Network or something like that.
The other night I wrote Paul briefly expressing sorrow for what I sensed was a
personal loss--indeed he said, when he responded, that several people in the
department were depressed and saddened.
Of course I heard about the negative side of him. According to Paul, the
morning in 1977 after Anwar Sadat made his separate peace with Israel, Said was
pacing the halls loudly cursing "Fucking Sadat, fucking Sadat!"
I am in no position to assess Said's legacy on the basis of having read two and
a half books and never having met him. I gather there was much to admire in
his work, perhaps less to admire in him, but he was one of those men around
whose work one may not step: you need to encounter and deal with it if not with
him.
Ken
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Kenneth Wolman
Proposal Development Department
Room SW334
Sarnoff Corporation
609-734-2538
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