Saree Makdisi
سري المقدسي
Born: Washington, D.C. (Palestinian-Lebanese heritage; nephew of Edward Said), United States
Domain: Academia & Thought
Recognition: GLOBAL
Biography
Saree Makdisi is a literary scholar and public intellectual, Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at UCLA, known both for major scholarship on British Romanticism and for incisive writing on Palestine. He carries forward, in his own register, the engaged-criticism tradition associated with his uncle Edward Said. In Romantic studies he is a leading authority, author of acclaimed books on William Blake and on Romanticism and empire, including Romantic Imperialism and a prize-winning study of Blake's illuminated works. His command of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British literature established his standing in the Anglophone academy. Makdisi is also among the most articulate scholarly commentators on Palestine and Israel. His book Palestine Inside Out offered a detailed account of the occupation's daily mechanics, and Tolerance Is a Wasteland analyzed the cultural and discursive frameworks that, he argues, naturalize dispossession. A frequent essayist in the Los Angeles Times, The Nation, and other outlets, he brings literary-critical method to political analysis, dissecting language, narrative, and ideology. His work models the public role of the humanities scholar that Said championed. Makdisi thus occupies a rare dual position, a respected Romanticist and a leading Palestinian voice in Western intellectual debate, influential among students of literature and of the conflict alike.
Why This Person Matters
He is both a leading scholar of British Romanticism and one of the sharpest Palestinian literary-critical voices on the occupation in the Western academy.