Boycotts, Resolutions and Israel/Palestine: Why Is Everyone Worked Up over ASA?

January 31, 2:30pm - 4:00pm
Mānoa Campus, Saunders 624 Add to Calendar

Presentation by Cynthia Franklin, Department of English.

In December 2013, the American Studies Association membership voted in record high numbers to pass a resolution supporting the call from Palestinian civil society to boycott Israeli academic institutions. In this talk, I discuss how my experience participating in a faculty development seminar in the Occupied Palestinian Territories informs my understanding of the boycott movement and reactions to it. As I describe the explosive response to the ASA resolution and to the growing support in the US for PACBI (the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel), I analyze how the concept of “academic freedom” and calls for compromise and balance serve to deny or ignore violations of international law against Palestinians, and to delegitimate or even demonize what is a non-violent and democratic movement for human rights, including Palestinians’ rights to education.


Event Sponsor
Political Science, Mānoa Campus

More Information
Kathy Ferguson, 956-8357, kferguso@hawaii.edu, http://www.politicalscience.hawaii.edu/

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