This panel brings together scholars from a variety of specialties and methods to examine Said’s impact twenty years after his passing. Not only is twenty years a significant milestone for re-examining the impact his work has had in a number of fields, but recent events in Gaza have newly brought his work back to a popular consciousness, as our first presenter shows, in how visible Said has become in current social media memes and discourse on Gaza. The second presenter will use a reading of Said’s essay, “The Right of Return,” to discuss Said’s conception of Jewish identity. While some have interpreted Said’s comments as a kind of secular version of the Apostle Paul, Caitlin reads Said’s thinking through his lifelong interest in Eric Auerbach, asserting “Said’s Auerbachian concept of the earthly, becomes not the locus of nationalism but its this-worldly antithesis.” The third panelist takes us away from questions of identity relevant to Israel and Palestine and examines how three separate groups of scholars have responded to the legacy of Said’s Orientalism when it comes to the representation of China in French literature. Thus our three panelists come from very different specializations – media studies, religious studies, and French and Chinese studies, to discuss very different aspects of Said’s work and legacy. Mokdad will examine the impact Said’s words and ideas have in social media around the war in Gaza, as well as the impact that the fragmented nature of social media has on the representation of Said’s views. Caitlin will read Said’s ideas—and the critiques they have garnered—in the context of religious thought from Paul to the present, but also in the context of assertions that authentic Jewish identity have to be tied to nationalism. Kim will examine the changing relationship with Said’s conception of Orientalism that scholars of Franco -Chinese sources have had over the last half century and its relevance for contemporary Franco-Chinese geopolitical politics.

Each of the panelists will be kept to a strict time allotment of 15-18 minutes and the respondent will just have a few questions prepared to preface the 15 minutes of unstructured conversation with the audience. Our panelists have a range of genders, religious and racial identities, methodologies, and positions in the academy (graduate student, assistant, associate and full professors). They are also dealing with texts written in multiple languages (English, Arabic, French, Greek, etc.). Thus we are confident that our panel will represent a diversity of voices.