Palestine and Logic of Denial
October 23, 2023
A talk by Saree Makdisi about his recent book, Tolerance Is a Wasteland: Palestine and the Culture of Denial (University of California Press, 2022). The question that Tolerance Is a Wasteland aims to answer might seem simple: how can a violent project of dispossession and discrimination be imagined, felt, and profoundly believed in as though it were the exact opposite––an embodiment of sustainability, multicultural tolerance, and democratic idealism? Despite well-documented evidence of racism and human rights abuse, Israel has long been embraced by the most liberal sectors of European and American society as a manifestation of the progressive values of tolerance, plurality, inclusivity, and democracy, and hence a project that can be passionately defended for its lofty ideals.
Organized by the Center for Palestine Studies. Cosponsored by The Society of Fellows and Heyman Center for the Humanities
Speaker
Saree Makdisi is a Professor of English and Comparative Literature at UCLA. His most recent book is Tolerance Is a Wasteland: Palestine and the Culture of Denial (2022). His other books include Reading William Blake (2015), Making England Western: Occidentalism, Race and Imperial Culture (2014); and Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation (2010).
Moderator
Nadia Abu El-Haj is Ann Whitney Olin Professor in the Departments of Anthropology at Barnard College and Columbia University and Co-Director of the Center for Palestine Studies.
https://sofheyman.org/events/palestin...