Princeton University

Princeton University is mentioned in Edward Said’s account in two distinct academic contexts: as the site of a 1973 conference on psychology and Near Eastern studies, and as a setting associated with the study of Arab intellectual thought. These references place the university within a wider discussion of how scholarly categories and claims about the region are produced, while offering no broader institutional portrait.

Conference on Psychology and Near Eastern Studies

A paper by Manfred Halpern, titled “Four Contrasting Repertories of Human Relations in Islam: Two Pre-Modern and Two Modern Ways of Dealing with Continuity and Change, Collaboration and Conflict and the Achieving of Justice,” was presented at Princeton University on May 8, 1973. It was delivered to the 22nd Near East Conference on Psychology and Near Eastern Studies. Said notes that the paper followed Halpern’s earlier article, “A Redefinition of the Revolutionary Situation,” published in the Journal of International Affairs in 1969. The reference establishes Princeton as the venue for a conference where Islam, social relations, historical change, conflict, and justice were framed as subjects of academic inquiry.

A Setting for Claims About Arab Thought

In a separate discussion, Said places Princeton among the American campuses where students and faculty in the 1980s worked to broaden academic curricula to include women, non-European writers and thinkers, and subaltern voices. He describes these changes as part of a wider challenge to Eurocentric approaches across disciplines, including history, anthropology, political science, literature, and sociology. This account presents campus scholarship as a site of curricular and interpretive change, not as a detailed account of Princeton’s particular initiatives.

Said also cites a conclusion from Adel Daher’s RAND study, presented as an example of a claim that “the concrete problem-solving approach is conspicuously absent from Arab thought.” The passage situates that assertion among scholarship that, in Said’s analysis, implies that Arabs think differently from others and may lack rationality. Princeton is connected to this intellectual setting through the cited Halpern conference, but the book does not say that the study or the claim originated at the university. The distinction matters: the university is a documented venue in one reference, while the larger critique concerns the scholarly production of generalizations about Arab thought.

Scope of the Reference

The two mentions serve different purposes. The conference reference identifies a date, an academic gathering, and a paper examining patterns of social relations in Islam. The broader campus discussion describes changes to curricula and disciplinary approaches during the 1980s. Neither passage supplies information about Princeton University’s organization, leadership, institutional policies, or overall history; its significance here is limited to these specific academic contexts.