This essay was my contribution to the panel Global and Transnational Approaches to Race and Racism at the Inaugural British Journal of Sociology Conference, 15-16 April 2024 at the London School of Economics. I am grateful to Ghada Majadli and … Continue reading “Social Theory after* Gaza? Witnessing the Transnational Circuits of Race-Making”
The so-called global Left, especially within the settlercolonial US-Canadian scene, is discombobulated. “End the Occupation” and “From the River to the Sea,” like Tahrir Square’s 2011 Orientalized so-called Arab Spring chant “Bread, Freedom, and Social Justice,” have turned into prophetic … Continue reading “It Is a Racial-Religious War: Organizing and a 1492 Transnational Movement Framing”
Dear world, This letter is a reclamation. It is a prayer to the universe. It is a plea for you to bear witness. Often, writing demands to be lyrical, poetic, and beautiful. Even when we write about our struggles, there … Continue reading “Gridlocks of Death, Oceans of Life”
On Monday, April 29, thirteen undergraduate students and one professor occupied Clio Hall on the campus of Princeton University in an attempt to force the administration to meet their demands for a revision of university relations with the state of … Continue reading “Pedagogy Against Genocide”
I belong to the question of the victim. –Mahmoud Darwish What follows is a thread of perfunctory reflections on a course I offered in January 2024 titled Decolonizing the Study of Palestine. A course is a complex, emergent human (and … Continue reading “Pedagogy and Epistemics of Witness: Teaching Palestine in a Time of Genocide”
As a collective of scholars based at academic institutions in and around New York City, we stand in solidarity with students and faculty practicing peaceful protest at Columbia, Barnard, CUNY, NYU, Cornell, the New School, and all across the country. … Continue reading “Statement on Student Repression at Columbia University”
فَلَمْ تَقْتُلُوهُمْ وَلَـٰكِنَّ ٱللَّهَ قَتَلَهُمْ ۚ وَمَا رَمَيْتَ إِذْ رَمَيْتَ وَلَـٰكِنَّ ٱللَّهَ رَمَىٰ ۚ وَلِيُبْلِىَ ٱلْمُؤْمِنِينَ مِنْهُ بَلَآءً حَسَنًا ۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ سَمِيعٌ عَلِيمٌۭ And you do not kill them, but it was Allah who killed them. And you … Continue reading “On Responsibility: Critique and Colonization After October 7th”
Will Eizlini, an American artist of French Jewish descent, tells me that he has been crying every day. When not crying, he is making a series of paintings interpreting the massacres in Gaza—crimson landscapes of sea, sky, dunes, with piles … Continue reading “The Burden of Witnessing”
In December 2003, Ariel Sharon, the former Israeli prime minister, announced in a televised speech Israel’s plans to “disengage” from its control of Gaza through the complete withdrawal of Israeli soldiers and the removal of Israeli settlements from Gaza after … Continue reading “Trapped Between Spaces: Gaza’s Existential Struggle”
If there is a direct historical antecedent to the attacks of October 7 and everything that has happened since, it is Israel’s sixteen-year blockade, which devastated Gaza and harmed a generation of Palestinians. I lived in Gaza City for six … Continue reading “Memories of Gaza”
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”
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”
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”
Because I am a Palestinian, born to a “goy mother,” I do not have the option of leaving the blockaded Gaza Strip where I live to attend a conference, or a give a talk at any international academic institution. Along … Continue reading “BDS: Decolonizing Palestine”
