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The question of beginnings in relation to Edward Said's book Orientalism can be narrated in very diverse ways, leading to a potentially productive question: when and where does the critique of Orientalism begin? Here at MESA, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary to Said's book, it would perhaps be instructive to situate the book in relation to the various geographies, histories and fields of knowledge in which it is embedded. What are the contexts and intertexts of Said's work? How can we characterize its undergirding conceptual paradigms and disciplinary methodologies? What about the neighboring fields that have impacted Said's work and that in turn have been impacted by that work—are they relevant to Middle Eastern studies? Since the Saidian critique of Orientalist epistemology has by now been extrapolated to diverse cultural geographies, how can we map these transnational currents in relation to the study of the Middle East? And, finally, what does a book, written by a diasporic Palestinian in the U.S., tell us about the kinds of analytical frames that might illuminate the study of that Middle East which is not simply "over there" but also "back here?"

Este artigo pretende incorporar uma questão pouco mencionada no discurso crítico sobre Israel e o sionismo: a presença dos judeus árabes e orientais, os sefarditas, oriundos em grande parte de países árabes e muçulmanos. Uma análise mais completa deve incluir as conseqüências negativas do sionismo não apenas para o povo palestino, mas também para os judeus sefarditas. A rejeição sionista do Oriente palestino e árabe-muçulmano tem por ilação a rejeição dos mizrahim (os "orientais"), os quais, assim como os palestinos, também tiveram o direito de auto-representação extirpado.

Résumé Intellectuelle inclassable – sociologue de la culture, féministe, militante anticoloniale au sens large – Ella Shohat est associée à la pensée postcoloniale depuis ses origines mais s'est toujours réclamée de son courant (auto)critique, comme le démontre le présent article, repris dans de nombreuses anthologies. Elle y met en garde contre les « modes de déploiement anhistoriques et universalisants » de la notion du postcolonial ainsi que « ses implications potentiellement dépolitisantes ». Née en Israël de parents juifs arabophones de Bagdad, Ella Shohat est professeur à la New York University, où elle enseigne plusieurs matières (art, science politique, études moyen-orientales, lettres comparées, genre et sexualités). Parmi d'autres livres, elle a publié Unthinking Eurocentrism (avec Robert Stam, Routledge, 1994), Talking Visions : Multicultural Feminism in a Transnational Age (MIT/New Museum, 1998), et Taboo Memories, Diasporic Voices (Duke, 2006). On peut lire en français son Sionisme du point de vue de ses victimes juives. Les juifs orientaux en Israël (La Fabrique, 2006) 1 .

Este artigo propõe um estudo da representação de Cleópatra ao longo do século passado, situando o debate sobre sua aparência e origens no âmbito da dominação colonial, das lutas anti-coloniais e das fricções raciais pós-coloniais que, como se tenta mostrar, acrescenta uma outra dimensão para entender o investimento na identidade de Cleópatra.

The essay focuses on the ""travel"" of various debates——orientalism, postcolonialism, postzionism——between the U.S. and Israel, between one institutional zone and political semantics and another. Through a comparative history of these critical intellectual debates, the author considers some key moments and issues in the ""translation"" of Said's ideas into Hebrew. The reception of Said's work is engaged in its contradictory dimensions, especially in liberal-leftist circles, where the desire to go-beyond-Said offers some ironic twists. The issues examined include: the nature of the ""post"" in the concepts of the ""post-colonial"" and ""post-Zionism""; the problem of ""hybridity"" and ""resistance"" in the land of partitions and walls; and the mediation in Israel, via the Anglo-American academy, of the ""subaltern"" intellectual.