美国文学评论家，后殖民理论家和政治评论员出生在中东。1963年，Edward表示（1935年至2003年）在纽约哥伦比亚大学举行了英语和比较文学的Parr教授，在那里他仍然留在这一天。说的兴趣跨越了文化和批判理论的领域和文学批评。他还积极参与当代政治和文化辩论（例如，他已经写了关于巴勒斯坦人口困境的历史根源 - 见巴勒斯坦的问题1979年）。

In his book Beginnings: Intention and Method (1975), Said sought to draw a distinction between the mythical or divine attribution associated with the notion of ‘origin’ in classical thought (which carries with it implications of order, chronology and hierarchy) and the human and secular realm of’beginning’ (a word which has associations with modernity, and implies an overturning of classical hierarchy, and its replacement with heterogeneous and disparate forms). Beginnings arise out of existing traditions and transform them through an immanent process. They are exemplified by, for example, the novel form which, in its postmodern guise, can allow for the formulation of modes of language which transgress accepted conventions and hierarchies of meaning. In turn, Said formulates a view of meaning that emphasises the political and cultural dimensions of its production, drawing on the work of thinkers such as Foucault in order to outline his position. However, although he engages with their work in a positive manner, Said does not endorse uncritically attitudes common among exponents of poststructuralism, e.g. a tendency to view individual agency as a product of impersonal forces. Rather, for Said, the activity of interpretation should be regarded as a particularised and individual activity that takes the form of an engagement with traditional forms in order to question them in a communal context.

Equally, Said has criticised the attitudes of much post-structuralist inspired critical theory for abandoning its radical beginnings in the 1960s in favour of a view which emphasises ‘undecidability’ above all else, and reduces questions of the formulation of meaning to mere matters of the free play of ‘textuality’ (see世界、文本和评论家, 1991)。这反映了他的一种观点，即文本被置于具体的社会和意识形态限制之中，因此，文本的创作就是对这些限制的参与。反过来,文本是不被视为语义结构解释完全开放的传说暂停决定性意义隐含在德里达等思想家提出的观点,而是通过系统相关权力关系的层次结构的含义。反过来，这些权力关系也有文化定位。由此可见，对赛义德来说，文本性是一个文化问题，文化问题也是一个等级维度的问题。再一次借鉴福柯，赛德提倡一种文化概念，它涉及到关注主导形式趋向于适合自己或安抚，从而控制外部的其他形式。本论文在东方主义(1978a)，赛义德对西方在学术研究的伪装下对“东方”文化的建构进行了批判性分析。赛义德的论点是外来文化的概念化体现在东方主义实际上是一种定义并因此行使控制的方式。赛义德认为，最重要的是，尽管如此东方主义表面上涉及到对一种外来文化的描述和定义，实际上它体现了一种话语，通过这种话语，欧洲文化通过提供一种“东方”的定义来定义自己，这种定义显示出完全相反的倾向(“非理性”相对于“理性”，等等)。赛义德的文章进一步阐述了这一论点文化和帝国主义1993年，他认为，非洲或印度身份的建设，例如，Jane Austen或Joseph Conrad的新颖性作品，可以被认为是涉及殖民形式的权力的统治。

资料来源:安德鲁·埃德加和彼得·塞奇威克的《文化理论的关键思想家》，劳特利奇出版社

类别：文学批评，俄罗斯乌克兰比分直播，哲学，Postcolonialism

标签:开始:意图和方法，文化和帝国主义，爱德华说，东方主义，Postcolonialism，巴勒斯坦的问题，世界、文本与评论家