Edward Said (1935–2003) was a Palestinian American Professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University. Said’s work is a very prominent example of how literature advances anthropology by fostering the development of its theories, critiquing anthropological insights and practices, and calling on anthropologists to reflect on the effect of their work on the people they investigate. Said’s book Orientalism was an initial impulse for postcolonial studies. Edward Said influenced psychological theories at a time when psychology began to reflect on itself as culturally, politically, and historically situated knowledge.