Might as well tell the whole truth: As much as he's a rock star of academics, Saïd has received some blistering criticism as well. One critic said that his entire project of bashing Orientalism was "a work of malignant charlatanry in which it is difficult to distinguish honest mistakes from willful misrepresentations." Ouch. (Source.)

He disputed most American foreign policy, but the guy also called American universities "the last remaining utopia." We guess he loved those ivy-covered brick walls and big grassy quads. (Source.)

Playing the piano was his runner-up passion, and he even wrote a book called Musical Elaborations about the arc of music since Beethoven. What a renaissance man. (Source.)

Errol Flynn was one of Saïd's all-time film heroes (didn't find out until later about Objective, Burma! the 1945 film in which Flynn plays Captain Nelson leading a mission that entails being air-dropped into Burma to seek and destroy a camouflaged Japanese Army radar station supposedly detecting Allied aircraft coming into China—bummer). (Source.)

Dude was a snazzy dresser and loved style. No Nehru jackets, of course. (Source.)