DURHAM, N.C. -- Edward Said, who died on Wednesday, provided an example for other scholars by engaging in political life without sacrificing his intellectual rigor, says a Duke University scholar of post-colonial and cultural theory.

Said was a professor and literary critic at Columbia University who was the most prominent advocate in the United States of the cause of Palestinian independence.

"My sense of Edward is that he able to provide a model for being engaged in political activities outside the university," said Grant Farred, an associate professor of literature at Duke who studied with Said as a graduate student.

"While his primary focus was the Palestinian cause, he was able to extend the struggle for justice far more broadly, with a particular application to the Third World," Farred said.

"He belongs to a remarkable generation of intellectuals that includes Fredric Jameson, Stuart Hall and Jacques Derrida, thinkers born in different parts of the world who influenced several generations of scholars and activists," Farred added.

Farred can be reached for further comment at (919) 668-1754 or by e-mail at grant.farred@duke.edu.