Bisan Owda, under her Instagram handle @wizard_bisan1, posts stories and reels that document the realities of daily life—and death—in Gaza during the now 100+ days of military siege by Israel. While before October 7th Owda was a filmmaker and hakawatieh, … Continue reading “Bisan Owda Is Still Alive”
the colonial question has always been: what to do with all these cypresses? what I forgot to say, dear colleagues, our university is indefensible it is stated that they love us and there is no water and no electricity fuck … Continue reading “our love is terroristic”
In November 2023, I presented a paper entitled “Settler Colonialism as the Automation of Attritional Warfare,” based on South Africa’s history of racialized governance, at Duke University and at the University of British Columbia. This is the revised version of … Continue reading “Epistemic Debilitation and the Erasure of Genocide”
In August, I attended a screening of Aurora’s Sunrise at the New Plaza Cinema. The documentary depicts the annihilation of Armenian lifeworlds in the Ottoman Empire at the beginning of the twentieth century. In August, the film was received as … Continue reading “Where Scenes of Catastrophe Reappear: On Armenian and Palestinian Solidarities”
No one watching the proceedings in the International Court of Justice on January 11 and 12, 2024—when South Africa accused Israel of genocide in Gaza—could have missed the racialized geopolitical atmospherics of the moment. On the South African side stood … Continue reading “Palestine and the Contours of the Third World”
In a 2001 telephone interview with the New York Times from Vienna, Johann August Schülein, then president of the Freud Society of Vienna, said of Edward Said’s disinvitation, “A lot of members of our society told us—they can’t accept that … Continue reading “Theory as Stone”
Refaat, your death visited me. It stood across from me in the dim room. I told your death “I am ready. I am ready.” Your death stared back, unimpressed. I sat in the wooden chair I arranged in … Continue reading “Rendition”
Two weeks after Israel began bombing Gaza, I was messaging with a close friend who now lives in New York. I had long known her to support Palestinian liberation, but now her tone was different. She expressed that too many … Continue reading “Justice Without Exception: Zionist Narrative and the Crisis of Liberalism”
These days, condemnation seems to be on everyone’s lips. In the nearly two months that have passed since Hamas launched its deadly attack on Israeli-controlled territory in the early hours of Saturday, October 7th, it seems that just about every … Continue reading “On Condemnation: Terrorism, Violence, and the Question of Palestine”
This is a revised version of a talk delivered at the symposium “Palestine and the Historian” at Harvard University on a panel titled “Borders, Apartheid, Carcerality.” My comrade Mary Jirmanus Saba—a filmmaker, geographer, and media studies scholar—recently participated in a … Continue reading “What Is Our Responsibility as Intellectuals to Palestine?”
From “The Book of Genocide” Behold Gaza Angels of death appear in skies and on screens Leaflets dropping down like dead birds: “Arise and flee into Egypt and stay there forever Herod will seek every Palestinian child and destroy them.” … Continue reading “Gazacide”
On Friday, November 17, 2023, a group of PhD students in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Toronto organized a teach-in entitled “Decolonization and the War on Gaza,” held during the annual AAA/CASCA meeting that was taking place … Continue reading “Palestine and Our University”
A curious strength emerges when lying on the earth in solidarity with the dead. On October 26, 2023, I joined a die-in on the USC campus as a faculty ally. There, in the act of laying my body on the … Continue reading “Lying Down to Stand Up for What Is Right”
Palestine is today’s Vietnam. Five decades ago, it was Vietnam’s anti-colonial struggle for independence—first against the French colonists and then against the US imperialists—that sparked international protest and solidarity. “Vietnam” became a synecdoche of the global Third World Liberation movement. … Continue reading “Palestine Is Today’s Vietnam”
On Friday, November 10th, the recently formed NYU Faculty for Justice in Palestine held a teach-in on campus on the theme of Palestine and the University. I share my remarks from that evening here. My name is Lou Cornum. I am … Continue reading “Palestine and the Project of Native Studies”
