The Case Against Academic Boycotts of Israel

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 Culture”
• CARY NELSON, “The Fragility of Academic Freedom”
• GABRIEL NOAH BRAHM and ASAF ROMIROWSKY, “In Intent, If Not in Effect: The Failure of BDS”
• EMILY BUDICK, “When a Boycott is Not Moral Action but Social Conformity and the ‘Affectation of Love’”

II. The American Studies Association

• SHARON ANN MUSHER, “The Closing of the American Studies Association’s Mind”
• DAVID HIRSH, “The American Studies Association Boycott Resolution, Academic Freedom, and the Myth of the Institutional Boycott”
• MICHAEL BERUBE, “Boycott Bubkes: The Murky Logic of the ASA’s Resolution Against Israel”
• DONNA ROBINSON DIVINE, “The Boycott Debate at Smith”

III. The BDS Movement, the Left, and American Culture

• SABAH A. SALIH, “Islam, BDS, and the West”
• Mitchell Cohen, “Anti-Semitism and the Left That Doesn’t Learn”
• CARY NELSON, “The Problem With Judith Butler: The Philosophy of the Movement to Boycott Israel”
• NANCY KOPPELMAN, “When you want to do something, join us!”: The Limits of the Social Justice Mandate in Higher Education”
• TAMMI ROSSMAN-BENJAMIN, “Interrogating the Academic Boycotters of Israel on American Campuses”
• SAMUEL M. EDELMAN and CAROL F. S. EDELMAN, “When Failure Succeeds: Divestment as Delegitimation”
• KENNETH MARCUS, “Is BDS Anti-Semitic?”
• ALAN JOHNSON, “Intellectual Incitement: The Anti-Zionist Ideology and the creation of the Anti-Zionist Subject”
• DAVID CAPLAN, “Imaginary Jews”
• RICHARD LANDES, “Fatal Attraction: The Shared Antichrist of the Global Progressive Left and Jihad”

IV. The Israeli Context

• ILAN TROEN, “The Campaign to Boycott Israeli Universities: Historical and Ideological Sources”
• RACHEL S. HARRIS, “No Place Like Home: Arab-Israelis, Contemporary Fiction, and an Arab-Hebrew Identity”
• SHIRA WOLOSKY, “Teaching in Transnational Israel: An Ethics of Difference”
• RACHEL FISH, “The Bi-nationalist Fantasy within Academia”
• ILAN TROEN, “The Israeli-Palestinian Relationship in Higher Education: Evidence from the Field”

V. A Concise History of Israel

• CARY NELSON, RACHEL S. HARRIS, and KENNETH W. STEIN, “The History of Israel”

VI. A Boycott Dossier

• Boycott Resolutions by Academic Associations
• Letter from ASA Members / Letter from ASA Presidents
• SONYA MICHEL & JEFFREY HERF, “Open Letter to a University President”
• MICHAEL C. KOTZIN, “Politics and the Modern Language Association: Reflections Before and After the MLA Vote”
• JEFF ROBBINS, “MLA Vote: Will Bias Beat Scholarship?”
• ROBERT FINE, “Speaking in Opposition”
• Online Resources

Endnotes

Notes on Contributors

Index