Edward Said: Continuing the Conversation
W.J.T. Mitchell

On the morning after Edward Said's death, Homi Bhabha and I had a phone conversation about the ways in which Critical Inquiry might best respond to this tragic and untimely event. The pace of a scholarly journal does not make for timely utterances of grief, and Edward's many friends, colleagues, former students, and readers were casting about for a way to honor his legacy as an activist intellectual. We discussed the possibility of assembling a special issue on Edward's work but found ourselves baffled by the enormous range of choices. Should we stress his literary, humanistic teaching and writing? His musical criticism and his work as a musical activist in collaboration with David Barenboim? His role as a cultural theorist, from his early assessments of French theory in Beginnings to his latest reflections on postcolonial theory? Or should we stress his importance as a political commentator, an engaged intellectual who emerged as the most eloquent spokesman for (and acerbic critic of) the Palestinian movement in the last quarter century? So many topics! So little certainty about what we needed right now.