Photo: Edward Said ’57 (columbia university)

If you read the PAW masthead in this issue, you will notice some changes. This fall, PAW has added several important staff members to the editorial team.

Class secretaries and memorialists already know the work of Fran Hulette, who joined PAW as Class Notes editor in September. Hulette has been a journalist for more than 25 years, working as an editor and writer for local newspapers, and in corporate communications. She appreciates the commitment of PAW’s volunteer correspondents; as a volunteer herself, Hulette has worked many hours for her three children’s schools and sports programs. She has a bachelor’s degree in history and a master’s degree in journalism from Syracuse University.

Mark Bernstein ’83 is PAW’s new, part-time feature writer. Regular PAW readers will know his name and work, as he has written several of our cover stories over the last year, including the September 10 story on football star Johnny Poe 1895 and the May 14 story on Princeton’s long-lasting project to compile and annotate the papers of Thomas Jefferson. Both stories were naturals for Bernstein, a history major and great fan of Ivy League sports, who has written a book titled Football: The Ivy League Origins of an American Obsession (2001). A former practicing lawyer with a law degree from the University of Virginia, Bernstein is also a talented cartoonist who draws cartoons for two legal newspapers.

Finally, as we prepare this issue we welcome Brett Tomlinson, a recent graduate of the Columbia University School of Journalism, as a new associate editor, responsible for editing our sports page and writing news stories for Notebook. Tomlinson has covered sports and news for newspapers in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and was a college football stringer for USA Today. As an undergraduate majoring in economics, he was editor of the student newspaper at Bucknell University, and went on to write articles for Bucknell’s alumni magazine.

These new staff members, as well as our PAW veterans, are committed to publishing the best alumni magazine possible. We welcome your comments; please send them by e-mail to paw@princeton.edu or snail mail to PAW, 194 Nassau Street, Suite 38, Princeton, N.J., 08542.

Princeton remembered Edward Said ’57, a widely known scholar, literary critic, and passionate champion of Palestinian independence, at a recent gathering in Robertson Hall. The event drew many students and faculty members who told of personal encounters with Said, who died September 25, and described how they had been moved by his work.

Said’s advocacy of the Palestinian cause thrust him into the public arena. His influence on other scholars, and ultimately on public debate, is undeniable. Several months ago, Vintage Books published a 25th anniversary edition of his best-known book, Orientalism, a groundbreaking critique of the West’s historical, cultural, and political perceptions of the East, including the Islamic world. Said wrote a preface to the new edition – a bold essay that likely will ring true with some readers and anger others. To read the preface, click here.