Tuesday, October 6
7:00 pm
New York University School of Law, Vanderbilt Hall Room 210, 40 Washington Square S New York, NY 10012

Facebook Event: https://www.facebook.com/events/923172314428854/

Join us for a discussion with Steven Salaita and Joseph Massad on academic freedom, free speech on campus, and the movement for justice in Palestine.

In the summer of 2014, renowned American Indian studies professor Steven Salaita had his appointment to a tenured professorship revoked by the board of trustees of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Salaita”s employment was terminated in response to his public tweets criticizing the Israeli government”s summer assault on Gaza.

Salaita”s firing generated a huge public outcry, with thousands petitioning for his reinstatement, and more than five thousand scholars pledging to boycott UIUC. His case raises important questions about academic freedom, free speech on campus, and the movement for justice in Palestine.

In his new book Uncivil Rites, Salaita combines personal reflection and political critique to shed new light on his controversial termination. He situates his case at the intersection of important issues that affect both higher education and social justice activism.

* * *

Steven Salaita currently holds the Edward W. Said Chair of American Studies at the American University of Beirut. Author of six previous books, he is a regular columnist for Electronic Intifada and a member of the Organizing Committee of the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI).

Joseph Massad is Professor of Modern Arab Politics and Intellectual History in the Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies at Columbia University. His academic work has focused on Palestinian, Jordanian, and Israeli nationalism, as well as Orientalism and Islam. Massad is the author of Desiring Arabs (2007), which was awarded the Lionel Trilling Book Award; The Persistence of the Palestinian Question: Essays on Zionism and the Palestinian Question (2006); and Colonial Effects: The Making of National Identity in Jordan (2001). His latest book is Islam in Liberalism, [University of Chicago Press, 2015].