The Columbia University Libraries is currently hosting an exhibit entitled: “Inscriptions Unbound: Edward Said’s Library”, on the 3rd floor of Butler Library. The exhibit features inscriptions from approximately 50 books selected from Edward Said’s book collections, which are housed in the Edward Said Reading Room (Butler Library), the Middle East Institute, and his former New York City apartment. The exhibit is curated by Joy Al-Nemri (MA in Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies at Columbia University). This week, after we mounted the exhibit, I sat down with Joy and asked her a few questions:
Hello, Joy. Can you please introduce yourself, your intellectual background and interests:
My name is Joy Al-Nemri. I hold a BA in Anthropology with a concentration in Middle Eastern Studies from Bard College and I am also a graduate of the Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies, MESAAS Department at Columbia University, where I earned an MA in May 2024. I am currently involved in a research project at the Middle East Institute. My MA thesis explored some of the ways in which Moroccans and Tunisians relate to Palestinians. Drawing on three months of participant observations and interviews I conducted in Morocco in 2022 and in 2023, my research sought to understand how North Africans relate to the Palestinian struggle on a personal, experiential level, and what these different forms of identification and solidarity reveal about group identities in the region. In the past few years, I have also conducted two Institutional Review Board Approved ethnographic studies on Arabic-speaking refugees in Greece and Connecticut. I have experience in refugee advocacy, teaching, translating, and leading DEI workshops. My scholarly interests include exploring the genealogy of anti-Blackness in Arabic-speaking contexts, Palestine solidarity, and how refugee crises are framed.
How did the idea of the exhibit come to you?
The exhibit came to me in phases. During my first semester at Columbia, my friend, Anna Tyshkov–a recent Columbia Anthropology alumnae–took me on my first visit to the Edward Said Reading Room. She told me that she would often work in the Said Reading Room and that she enjoyed looking through Said’s books on her breaks. The room soon became my favorite place to study on campus. I could not believe that I was surrounded by the books that shaped one of my most cherished thinkers. I would leaf through the pages of the books, and imagine a sense of intellectual closeness to my aspirational mentor, Edward Said.
In the Fall of 2022, I was enrolled in Professor Brinkley Messick’s “Written Culture” course. The course provided a wonderful opportunity to think more deeply about various forms of texts, inscriptions, and archives. I would often go to Prof. Messick’s office hours that semester, and during one of our early discussions, the topic of Edward Said’s books and library came up. Prof. Messick proposed an idea, and shared that a graduate student who had since graduated, had actually started looking through some of Said’s books that are housed in the Middle East Institute. These were books that did not make it to the Edward Said Reading Room in Butler Library, but were nonetheless donated to Columbia University. I was thrilled to find two full shelves worth of books at the MEI, and to my surprise, many had inscriptions within their fly leaves from leading intellectuals, which intrigued me and piqued my curiosity: the previous graduate student had also noticed this, and had started to annotate a list with the names of the donors of these books and of their dedications and messages to Said. I came back to Prof. Messick and shared my enthusiasm for this project, and proposed that I would pick up where the student left the project. Prof. Messick was enthusiastic and fully supportive. The MEI’s Arcapita Visiting Professor at the time, Dr. Islam Dayeh, had also expressed enthusiasm for the project, and taken on a faculty supervisor role for the first stage of this project.
Later in the spring of 2023, Prof. Messick recommended that I share the inscriptions with Edward’s wife, Mariam Said. This is when the oral history component of the project developed. I remember my strong feelings when Mariam told me many stories about Said’s connections to Palestine. It was especially meaningful to me that these conversations were taking place during the week of the 75th anniversary of the Nakba, a devastating milestone for my family and the Palestinian community at large. Over the following year, I would share all of the inscriptions I found with Mariam and we would talk endlessly. Mariam was full of stories and she helped bring invaluable context to the inscriptions, the people behind them, and their relationships with Said. Her guidance was instrumental in helping me curate the exhibit, as I had to select only 49 inscriptions to showcase out of hundreds. She was so kind to open up her home to me, give me her time, and share her personal photo collection in addition to books from her apartment that I thought would help add depth and context to the exhibit.
The Head of Global Studies, Kaoukab Chebaro, and the Middle East & Islamic Studies Librarian, Peter Magierski, also spent countless hours guiding me through each stage of the project. Kaoukab advocated for my project within the Libraries, helped me navigate the workflows, and helped shape the form and content of the exhibit with the utmost care. She helped highlight key intellectual topics and pointed me to key activist figures to include in the final exhibit. We would discuss the wireframing for the exhibit, the general concepts, and my write-up and progress in weekly meetings. Among many contributions, Peter helped me stay organized and lent his support to the project throughout its execution: he provided excel sheets, exhibit mock-up frameworks, and when all was ready, the three of us (myself, Peter and Kaoukab) spent long hours way into the evening pinning the exhibit up with meticulous attention to detail, spacing and overall layout. I truly could not have done this project without Kaoukab and Peter’s precious help and support. 
What was the degree of your familiarity with the Edward Said book collection prior to embarking on this curatorial journey? Why did you choose to focus on the book collection rather than on the archival collection in this exhibit?
This is a great question! To be honest, I was more familiar with the Edward Said Reading Room collection rather than the archival collection. The Reading Room was more accessible to me and it initially seemed most feasible to begin the project by looking at the books housed in the Middle East Institute and the Reading Room. If given the opportunity, I would love for a chance to expand upon my work and look through the archival collection. I’m sure there are many treasures there that would likely have so much resonance with the inscriptions I have found, and would deepen and broaden the narrative I pointed to through my selection of the inscriptions in the books. Much more needs to be told about these stories than I was able to with this exhibit.
How wonderful! More to look forward to. Hopefully, this can be continued at some stage. What was the curatorial process or principle you followed, and how did you come up with the various window themes?
After finding hundreds of inscriptions, I had the painful task of narrowing down which stories I would share. Mariam and Kaoukab were most helpful to me. I had to pick and choose whether or not I would prioritize an inscription based on the inscriber, their relationship with Edward, and the quality of what they wrote, and the overall narrative I wanted to convey. This was the hardest thing for me: to learn to let go, to prioritize and think through how to write an exhibit and a label in 100 words, rather than in 2000 words or more, as in writing a scholarly paper or report. After narrowing down some names, I decided early on that I wanted each window theme to represent the title of one of Edward’s books. I then connected the inscriptions to the book themes that seemed to make the most sense. In the later stages of the curation, I decided to have an introductory window and made the final selections of photographs from the Said family’s personal collection.
Which window, or which items from the exhibit are your favorite, and why?
This is a very hard question for me to answer, but I would have to say that After the Last Sky: Palestinian Lives is my favorite window. I love how Jean Mohr’s images from the book help showcase the beauty and resilience of the Palestinian people. These images are juxtaposed with inscriptions from Palestinians whose gratitude and love for Edward shine through. This exhibit is not only a commemoration of Edward Said as a person and public intellectual, it’s also a testament to the inextricable bonds that the Palestinian community has with the land and each other, despite the trauma of the ongoing Nakba and exile.
What surprised you about the process of curating an exhibit such as this one? What did you learn?
This was one of the best learning experiences of my life. Researching and curating this exhibit helped me keep myself open for surprises. I was shocked by how many inscriptions were left to both Mariam and Edward–a testament to how the both of them forged meaningful personal and intellectual relationships. I also was heartwarmed to see inscriptions from many individuals who did not know Edward personally, but felt compelled to send him books. The nature of many of these relationships were corroborated by Mariam, which I so often could not have been able to know otherwise.
The process of curating the exhibit was also a great intellectual and writing exercise. It was my first exhibit where I wrote for the wider public, rather than for my instructors in a classroom setting. With great guidance from Kaoukab and Peter, I aimed to show, rather than tell stories. The details from the inscriptions I brought to focus throughout the exhibit embody the connections and narratives I was most excited to share.
What were some of the challenges and rewards you encountered?
This project brought me immense joy and comfort during an incredibly difficult and emotionally charged time. While there were many challenges that I faced throughout this endeavor, I feel grateful for all of the ways I learned to navigate through each issue that arose. It was my first time doing archival work–let alone with over 4,000 books housed in three different locations. I began the project by looking through about 1,000 of Edward’s books that were located in an office in the Middle East Institute. While most of these books were on the shelves, two years later I paid closer attention to 6 large cardboard boxes that I discovered held dozens of Edward’s books. These boxes were sealed for nearly 20 years and no one really had the bandwidth to account for them.
There were logistical challenges and problems of access, too: the second phase of the project took place in Butler Library’s Edward Said Reading Room. While I had started looking through the books in the Said Reading Room prior to October 7, 2023, there was a period in the Spring of 2024 coinciding with the student protests and the locking of the campus to essential staff only: I had to wait until campus reopened to visitors to resume my work.
On the rewards front, I cherish the opportunity I was given to work through the material in this way, almost as an ethnologue–what can the trajectories of books tell us about the people who cherish them? — I dug into the inscriptions–both terse and longer-form letters– that had been hidden within the bindings of Edward Said’s books for decades, with curiosity and real joy. It was also rewarding for me to share these inscriptions with his wife, Mariam Said, and help her recount lost memories and discover new connections.
Are you planning any events to go with the exhibit?
Yes! I am planning a talk at Columbia later this spring that will go into more detail about the project and my findings. I hope to invite Mosab Abu Toha, who founded the Edward Said Public Library in Beit Lahia, North Gaza in 2017. This was Gaza’s first English language library and it was tragically destroyed by Israel on January 22, 2025 during its ongoing genocidal campaign against Palestinians. I believe that Mosab’s own work will help complement and shed new light on my own work. After the exhibit is taken down on the 77th anniversary of the Nakba (May 15, 2025), I hope to install a good part of it in Knox Hall, with the Middle East Institute. Inshallah, more events to come!
If there is one message you would convey to the viewers of the exhibit, especially the students, what would it be?
The story that emerges from this exhibit is one of a man bigger than life, a committed public intellectual with a brilliant and daring mind as well as hugely impressive erudition; a humorous and witty interlocutor; a warm friend; an exacting and generous teacher; a curious and engaged colleague; but most of all, a courageous humanist who spoke truth to power. These dedications reveal the enduring legacy of a man whose passion for social justice and intellectual integrity continue to inspire and shape discourses across generations, especially around Palestine and justice for Palestinians.
Thank you, Joy! What a pleasure to work with you, and what a journey! I wish you the best of luck with all your next projects!
Kaoukab Chebaro, Global Studies, Head, Columbia University Libraries
For inquiries regarding the Edward Said Reading Room, email Kaoukab Chebaro, Global Studies, Head: kc3287@ columbia.edu
For inquiries regarding our extensive Middle Eastern Studies collections, email Peter Magierski, Middle East and Islamic Studies Librarian: pm2650@columbia.edu
For inquiries regarding the Edward Said archival papers or to book an appointment, email RBM: staffrbml@library.columbia.edu