David Palumbo-Liu’s  “Not so Much anti-Boycott as Pro-Israel” [symploke 23.1-2 (2015)] is comprehensive critique of The Case Against Academic Boycotts of Israel, edited by Cary Nelson and Gabriel Noah Brahm.

Academic Boycott Debates: Palumbo-Liu vs Nelson and Brahm

For more information and discussion of the resolution to endorse the Palestinian call to boycott Israeli academic institutions, please check our new website, which is open to public viewing and regularly updated with news, links and blog-posts, and our Facebook page. Like us there!

https://mlaboycott.wordpress.com/…[Read more]

This November, the business meeting of the American Anthropological Association overwhelmingly voted–by a margin of 86%–to send a resolution to endorse the Palestinian Call for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions to the full membership for a…[Read more]

Part-time faculty and other contingent faculty are eligible for travel grants to attend the convention in Austin.

Here’s the link:
https://www.mla.org/Resources/Career/MLA-Honors-and-Awards/MLA-Financial-Assistance/Non-Tenure-Track-Faculty-Members-and-Unemployed-Members-Traveling-to-the-Convention

Freeway Fliers can be found here. It contains very interesting observations, including a point about the tenure process now being very much complicit in the de-radicalization of the professoriate!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hsMUuEpxO0

The Public and its Privates

Submission deadline: October 16, 2015
Submit to: mlasubconference@gmail.com

Between the Public and Its Privates
Third Annual MLA Subconference
in partnership with Punctum Books
January 6-7, 2016
Location: Studium Art Space
638 Tillery St., Austin, TX 78702

Today it seems almost impossible to point to the public…[Read more]

Between the Public and Its Privates
Third Annual MLA Subconference
in partnership with Punctum Books

January 6-7, 2016 (FREE)
Location: Studium Art Space (FREE)
638 Tillery St., Austin, TX 78702

As the 2016 MLA Convention turns to consider “Literature and its Publics” the third annual meeting of the MLA Subconference challenges participants to…[Read more]

As the 2016 MLA Convention turns to consider “Literature and its Publics” the third annual meeting of the MLA Subconference challenges participants to propose sessions somewhere “Between the Public and its Privates”.

Today it seems almost impossible to point to the public without uncovering its uncanny twin–the private. Consider Google’s Han…[Read more]

The French organization AURDIP (Association des Universitaires pour le Respect du Droit International en Palestine) has recently released the report of a delegation to Palestine of 8 academics from 5 European countries.  The full report on conditions for Palestinian scholars, teachers and students under occupation and blockade is available he…[Read more]

The MLA Executive Council has issued a statement against the censorship of controversial speech and reaffirmed its endorsement of academic freedom.

http://www.mla.org/ec_censorship_controversial

This brief essay by Talal Asad gives a very economical account of the rationale and necessity of academic boycott:

Talal Asad: Why do I support the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement?

See the ACLA website for the State of the Discipline Report, which includes an entry on “Academic Boycott” in the Ideas of the Decade section.

http://stateofthediscipline.acla.org/entry/academic-boycott

For anyone who doubts the apartheid nature of the Israeli occupation, this documentation from the respected Israeli Human Rights organization B’Tselem makes for disturbing viewing and reading.  http://www.btselem.org/hebron/20150401_separation_fence_in_hebron

In discussions of the boycott’s potential impact on “academic freedom”, one thing that is consistently ignored is the impact of occupation and colonization on Palestinian academics and students.  This report outlines some of the conditions in which they struggle to maintain the basic functions of a university.  As it remarks, “The grim realities e…[Read more]

Joining the Executive Committees of the West Asian Literatures Discussion Group, the Arabic Literature Division’s , and the Division on Marxism, Literature, and Society, the MLA’s Division on Ethnic Studies in Language and Literature Executive Committee has voted to support the resolution to boycott Israeli academic institutions. MLA Members for J…[Read more]

I hope members of his discussion group can utilize the MLA site for registering one’s support for contingent faculty both within the MLA and in one’s department, union, and institution.  Here’s the…[Read more]

In the wake of the Delegate Assembly’s discussion of the boycott of Israeli academic institutions at MLA 2015, a DA member sent the following important queries regarding the scope and practice of the boycott. Some MLA Members for Justice in Palestine reply to her questions here. It’s a long document, but provides a concrete sense what is implied (…[Read more]

The Arabic Literature Division’s Executive Committee has unanimously voted to endorse the resolution presented to the MLA Delegate Assembly to boycott Israeli academic and governmental institutions.