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The crisis of globalism, changing views on religion, and Middle Eastern conflicts are driving factors in the rise of anti-Semitism, a Hoover scholar says. Russell Berman, a professor of comparative literature and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, is the co-chair of the Working Group on Islamism and the International Order. He was recently interviewed about the increase in anti-Semitism, particularly…
read moreThe new book edited by Cary Nelson and Gabriel Noah Brahm. (New York: MLA Members for Scholars’ Rights. Distributed by Wayne State University Press) TABLE OF CONTENTS PAUL BERMAN, “Preface” CARY NELSON, “Introduction” I. Opposing Boycotts as a Matter of Principle AAUP, “On Academic Boycotts” MARTHA NUSSBAUM, “Against Academic Boycotts” RUSSELL A. BERMAN, “The Boycott as an Infringement on Academic…
read moreFiercely anti-Zionist students have become a fixture on American college campuses. They depend on professors for their doctrine, and the professors are spreading disinformation, as Cary Nelson, president of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) between 2006 and 2012, shows in his valuable new book, Israel Denial: Anti-Zionism, Anti-Semitism, and the Faculty Campaign Against the Jewish State. Nelson’s argument is simple: If…
read morePartisanship plagues the humanities. The proliferation of intensely politicized scholarship denouncing Israel as a criminal state exemplifies the conflation of activism with systematic inquiry and analysis. That conflation subverts the dedication to truth indispensable to the university’s mission. Last fall in his book “Industry of Lies,” Israeli journalist Ben-Dror Yemini extensively documented the variety of falsehoods that established scholars—along with seemingly reputable…
read moreProfessors Cary Nelson, left and Russell Berman at a panel discussion on the sidelines of the Modern Language Association conference in Chicago, January 2014. This lengthy essay by two leading US professors challenges the world of academic publishing. They identify the symptoms of a ‘widespread institutional corruption that extends far beyond the debates over the Middle East’: the move of…
read moreThis lengthy essay by two leading US professors challenges the world of academic publishing. They identify the symptoms of a ‘widespread institutional corruption that extends far beyond the debates over the Middle East’: the move of disciplines and journals from textual interpretation and scholarship to politics and polemic; the fundamental breakdown in the peer review process in the humanities and…
read moreBy a large margin, members of the Modern Language Association have voted to “refrain from endorsing the boycott” of Israeli universities that has been pushed for years — including within the MLA — by advocates for Palestinians. For years, the MLA’s Delegate Assembly has debated various measures related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In January the Delegate Assembly rejected a resolution…
read moreTen years ago no academic association in the United States, with the possible exception of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA), would have been motivated to make public statements critical of Israel. Over the last decade, many members of associations across the disciplines of the humanities and social sciences have taken a stand in support of Palestinians. One way in…
read moreOn Saturday at the annual convention of the Modern Language Association in Philadelphia, the Delegate Assembly, the elected body of the organization of which I am a member, debated and ultimately rejected a BDS motion to boycott Israeli universities, 113-79. In addition, after lengthy and heated discussions on Saturday afternoon, the Assembly adopted a resolution, by a vote of 101-93,…
read morePHILADELPHIA — In a defeat for the movement to boycott Israeli academic institutions, members of the Modern Language Association’s Delegate Assembly voted down a resolution endorsing the academic boycott while voting to adopt another resolution that calls on the association to refrain from the boycott. The vote in favor of the anti-boycott resolution was 101 to 93, while the pro-boycott…
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