Edward Said and Critical Decolonization: 2005

This issue of Alif strives to cover the multi-faceted career of Said, with emphasis on his critical contribution to decolonization and resistance to hegemony. There are moving testimonies by friends and relatives, students and colleagues, which throw light on his personality. An article by Said on the idea of the University is published for the first time in the English section of this issue, in addition to two of his articles which appear for the first time in Arabic translation in the Arabic section. The issue also includes academic articles exploring in depth Said's political, critical, and aesthetic positions-including his views on the Palestinian question and exile, on Orientalism and representation, on intellectuals and secular criticism, on traveling theory, music, and humanism. Said's thought is explored in order to understand him better and to engage with his ideas contrapuntally. Several articles in this issue look into the relation of Said to other major thinkers: Marx, Freud, Gramsci, Adorno, Vico, Eqbal Ahmad, Frantz Fanon, Michel Foucault, Chinua Achebe, among others. Contributors to this issue come from different parts of the world, from Japan to Mexico, and from Egypt to India. This diversity becomes Said who crossed geographical and disciplinary borders to become an intellectual of the world, speaking on behalf of the voiceless. -- from Editorial (p. 7).