To interview Saree Makdisi contact the IMEU at 718-514-9662 or [email protected]

Saree Makdisi, professor of English and Comparative Literature at UCLA, comes from a family of leading academics and intellectuals. His grandfather, Anis, taught Arabic literature at the American University of Beirut while his father, Samir, currently teaches economics there. His mother, Jean Said Makdisi, also used to teach but is now an independent scholar. Saree Makdisi is also the nephew of the late Edward Said. 

Born in Washington, DC, Makdisi grew up in Beirut and returned to the US to complete his education. He received his BA from Wesleyan University and his PhD from Duke. He taught for ten years at the University of Chicago, before moving to UCLA in 2003. 

"In terms of discussions of the Palestinian question in the US, the academy is one of the last places where serious, rigorous, independent thinking remains possible; a place where Israel's myths about itself have been pretty much turfed out and been replaced by serious historical narratives," Makdisi explains. "This is why academic freedom has been under such constant attack by individuals and institutions pledged to defending Israel's image in America. They realize that people are finally speaking the truth in the academy in a way they aren't yet in the media-and they can't stand it."

Widely published in his academic area of expertise, eighteenth and nineteenth century British literature and culture, Makdisi is the author of two books, Romantic Imperialism: Universal Empire and the Culture of Modernity (Cambridge University Press, 1998) which the American Library Association named an "Outstanding Academic Book of 1998," and William Blake and the Impossible History of the 1790s (University of Chicago Press, 2003). He is completing work on a third book, Radical Afterlives: 1798-1870.

Makdisi devotes substantial time and energy to defending the Palestinian people's rights, and to exploring alternatives to what he calls "the now moribund two-state solution" that will enable peace with justice for both Israelis and Palestinians. He has written many commentaries on Palestine for publications such as the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Houston Chronicle, London Review of Books and the San Francisco Chronicle.

For work on his current book, Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation, due out in 2008, Makdisi traveled to the West Bank in 2004, for the first time in 10 years. The book will combine the personal experiences of daily life under occupation with an analysis of how the occupation functions as a whole. "What I discovered when I went there, for all that I knew, I still found myself shocked."

Op-Eds by Saree Makdisi:

The strangulation of Gaza, The Nation

Academic freedom at risk on campus, Seattle Post-Intelligencer

The war on Gaza's children, Los Angeles Times

West should respect Palestinians' democratic choice, Los Angeles Times

For a secular democratic state, The Nation

Carter's apartheid charge rings true, San Francisco Chronicle

Avigdor Lieberman and the substance of Israeli politics, IMEU

U.S. should not abet violence in Lebanon, Cleveland Plain Dealer

No peace for Israel without justice for the Palestinians, Houston Chronicle

The real winner in Israel, San Francisco Chronicle

Sanctions and the peace process, Chicago Tribune

Illusion of democracy, San Francisco Chronicle