 In 1963 , Said joined Columbia University , as a member of the English and Comparative Literature faculties , where he taught and worked until 2003 . In 1974 , he was Visiting Professor of Comparative Literature at Harvard ; during 1975 – 76 , he was a Fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Science , at Stanford University . In 1977 , he became the Parr Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University , and subsequently was the Old Dominion Foundation Professor in the Humanities , and then in 1979 was Visiting Professor of Humanities at Johns Hopkins University . Said also worked as a visiting professor at Yale University , and lectured at other universities . Said lectured at over 200 universities in the Middle East , Canada , United States , and Europe . He has published more twenty books in his lifetime . In 1992 , Said was promoted to " Professor " , the highest @-@ rank academic job at Columbia University . <unk> , Prof. Said served as president of the Modern Language Association , editor of the Arab Studies Quarterly in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , on the executive board of International PEN , and was a member in the American Academy of Arts and Letters , the Royal Society of Literature , the Council of Foreign Relations the American Philosophical Society . In 1993 , Said presented the BBC 's annual Reith Lectures , a six @-@ lecture series titled Representation of the Intellectual , wherein he examined the role of the public intellectual in contemporary society , which the BBC published in 2011 . 
