Watch recording of 'Teaching Palestine in the Present'
A recording of this event, which was held online on 4 May 2022, is now available to watch.
Who writes Palestinian history, in the present, and down to the present? How is it written and practiced, in and outside Europe, and what for? How has what the Italian revolutionary and intellectual Antonio Gramsci called the ‘war of position’ (an organizational and cultural struggle in the ‘fortresses’ of civil society) been fought from above and below in schools and universities? What are the stakes of the struggle? Who is involved?
This panel addressed these questions by examining factors such as the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement, transnational Palestinian solidarity, university politics, the firing of academics, publishing, education, academic freedom, pro-Israeli groups and individuals, state power, and Zionism. We aimed to open up a wide-ranging discussion of how the ‘integral politics’ of Palestinian history are playing out amid contested forms of hegemony in the present, while considering how those in Middle East Studies can best intervene.
Chair: Teodora Todorova (Teaching Fellow in Sociology, University of Warwick / Chair, BRISMES Committee on Outreach and Pedagogy)
Discussant: Yara Hawari (Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network)
Speakers
- Nicola Pratt (Professor, International Politics of the Middle East, University of Warwick / BRISMES Committee on Academic Freedom)
- Tamara Ben-Halim (Co-Director and Founder of MAKAN)
- Giovanni Fassina, (Programme Director, European Legal Support Centre - ELSC)
- Martin Konečný (Director, European Middle East Project - EuMEP)
- John Chalcraft (Professor of Middle East History and Politics, London School of Economics / BRISMES Secretary / Director of BRISMES Campaigns).
This event was held online on 4 May 2022.