Edward Said’s talk on ‘Clash of Civilizations’ by Samuel Huntington 4


Many talks and interviews with well known people are now available online. I’ve put together a series of them that I have specially enjoyed. To see the rest, click here

This is a wonderful lecture by Edward Said on Samuel Huntington’s idea about “Clash of civilizations”. In this lecture Edward Said analyses in detail the arguments of Samuel Huntington in his paper on Clash of civilizations (with a question mark) that ultimately became his book (this time without a question mark!). Edward Said incisively analyzes Huntington’s notion that differences in culture between the ‘West’ and ‘Islam’ will lead to conflicts between the two civilizations. Arguing against monolithic understanding of cultures, Said makes a powerful case for multiculturalism.

Edward Said is one of the most powerful speakers I have listened to off-late, and this dense lecture is worth every minute of it. The talk is approximately 40 minutes and is followed by questions. The video can be found here.

If you konw of a good talk that you feel may be of interest to me, I welcome you to leave a comment below. Thank you.

About Vivek Srinivasan

I work with the Program on Liberation Technology at Stanford University. Before this, I worked with the Right to Food Campaign and other rights based campaigns in India. To learn more, click here.

Have thoughts to share?

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

4 thoughts on “Edward Said’s talk on ‘Clash of Civilizations’ by Samuel Huntington