Many people probably saw the news that Facebook allegedly privileges left-leaning stories in its trending news section, a story broken by Gizmodo at the beginning of this month. The BBC builds on this report to explore how what we see online (and the various ways in which this get tailored more and more specifically to us) affects our behavior. “[I]t …
Tag Archives: Politics
Who’s Playing the ‘Nazi Card’ in Anthropology?: Rhetorical Spectres of Anti-Semitism in the BDS Debate
Two recent articles by BDS leaders in anthropology have accused boycott opponents of debasing the debate in anthropology, either by playing the “Nazi card” or by introducing the “whiff” or “stench” of anti-Semitism into the arena. The first, Lisa Rofel and Daniel Segal’s piece, “J’Accuse: How Not to Have a Political Debate about BDS,” was recently published in Savage Minds…
Earthly togetherness: making a case for living with worms
In this short essay, I will try to convince you of the importance of earthworms in thinking about politics.
If this sounds like an argument, that is because it is. I first organized the materials in this essay to make a case. They were part of a public thesis ‘defense’ that took place in the small country of the …
Graduate Student Response to “When It’s Time to Vote, Don’t Boycott Academics–Cut the Purse Strings”
As graduate students and new members of the American Association of Anthropologists, we approach the academic boycott resolution vote with hope. We write today in response to “When It’s Time to Vote, Don’t Boycott—Cut the Purse-strings”, which outlines an argument against the resolution and calls instead for “targeted, collective action”. The academic boycott is exactly this: a …
Disciplinary Peace Above All Else?
“When It’s Time to Vote, Don’t Boycott Academics – Cut the Purse-strings” raises important questions about the power of economic divestment in the struggle for Palestinian rights. In so doing, however, it presents us with not one, but two false choices. First, it tells us to pursue economic divestment instead of academic boycott. Why is this an either/or, …
When It’s Time to Vote, Don’t Boycott Academics – Cut the Purse-strings
Editor’s note: We received this letter, signed by the authors listed above and by nine anonymous authors, as a reply to our earlier Debate Forum.
After far too long a moratorium on reasoned debate, a terrible dam first cracked, then crumbled. Certainly the current sturm und drang about American academics’ relationship to the ever more disastrous situation in Israel/Palestine is …