By Karam Dana, Maryam Griffin, Dan Berger, Jed Murr, Brinda Sarathy
After nearly two months of an unfolding genocide in Gaza, the urgency of holding public conversations about Palestine within the campus community at the University of Washington Bothell (UWB) was clear. To meet this urgency, on November 29th, 2023, coinciding with the United Nations’ International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, faculty and leadership in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences (IAS) at UWB conducted a teach-in to contextualize and decry the crisis. Featuring acclaimed scholars of Palestine Karam Dana and Maryam Griffin, and moderated by abolitionist historian Dan Berger, the two-hour teach-in engaged our School’s faculty, staff, and students in a nuanced exploration of the history and politics surrounding Palestine, Zionism, and Israel’s war on Gaza.
The virtual teach-in was attended by more than 70 IAS faculty, staff, and students from UW Bothell on short notice. More importantly, it foregrounded a deep hunger in our academic community for opportunities to critically learn about Palestine, the history and present of Israeli settler colonialism, occupation, and apartheid, and the multidisciplinary traditions of Palestinian resistance. Given the interest generated by the teach-in, the IAS Dean’s Office partnered with Professors Dana and Griffin to support the offering of a course, entitled The Question of Palestine, the following quarter.
We approached the course as an opportunity to foreground—in the vein of Edward Said’s book whose name we borrowed—Palestinian perspectives on the genocidal violence and dispossession inflicted upon them in the name of Zionism, as well as the pressing imperative for Palestinian self-determination. It was also a chance for us to team-teach, harnessing our School’s strength in interdisciplinarity to shed light on many dimensions of Nakba and resistance. Our 10-week course on Palestine was conducted in a largely hybrid format; the first and last class sessions were in person and the rest over Zoom. Each two-hour meeting featured a presentation by an internationally renowned feminist scholar of Palestine, followed by a Q&A moderated by an IAS faculty member. Many of the invited speakers were members of the Palestinian Feminist Collective. We were able to offer students the opportunity to learn from this international collection of high-profile thinkers precisely because of our online format. Most of our guests were responding to constant requests for their crucial expertise, and it was important for us to recognize this ultimately invaluable labor. So, our co-teachers and dean worked to secure funding to compensate our invited speakers, a notable departure from many other university administrations who busied themselves censuring any scholars who publicly opposed the genocide against Palestinians. Our teaching team members volunteered our efforts to organize the course, recognizing it as a way to respond to an urgent need of our students to critically process the horrors unfolding in their world.
Throughout the quarter, students explored critical issues related to the history, politics, and context of the Palestinian struggle, including media, feminism, sexuality, political economy, incarceration, food, geography, and law. Students also actively followed current events, reading a selection of articles from scholars, activists, and artists, and engaging in public conversations about these topics.
Significantly, ours was the only course offered at the University of Washington during the 2023-2024 academic year to foreground the lived experiences, creative expressions, and intellectual perspectives of Palestinian scholars at a time of growing repression of pro-Palestinian voices on campuses in the US and beyond. The course, which was capped at 50 students and limited to UW Bothell undergraduates, filled almost immediately. Many of the students in the course were actively involved in Palestinian solidarity activism outside of the classroom, across the UW’s three campuses, and in local communities beyond campus.
In addition to engaging with our guest speakers over Zoom, students posted weekly reflections on the readings. As students learned more about the multi-faceted nature of the Palestinian struggle and resistance, their analysis of course materials became increasingly nuanced. Students also demonstrated an ability to extend theoretical concepts introduced in earlier sessions to later coursework. As one student wrote:
“Reflecting on Dr. Ihmoud’s article, I was struck by the intricate interplay of feminism, conflict, and survival, themes that resonate with previous discussions on the cultural identity and resilience of the Palestinian people, especially in Gaza. The dialogue between Dr. Ihmoud and Mona Ameen powerfully underscored the human dimension of the ongoing siege, echoing earlier reflections on how the absence and presence of food shape life in conflict zones. It’s a stark reminder of how basic necessities like food and the ability to live with dignity become deeply political and intertwined with one’s cultural identity in times of war.
Dr. Ihmoud’s narrative weaves together the personal and the political, illustrating how decolonial Palestinian feminism stands distinct from more universal feminist narratives. This form of feminism embraces love and solidarity as radical resistance tools, aligning with previous discussions on the importance of cultural practices, like food traditions, in maintaining and expressing cultural identity amidst adversity. The concept of practicing decolonial love as a critical feminist consciousness, as explored by Dr. Ihmoud, adds a profound layer to our understanding of resistance and survival, illustrating that in the heart of darkness, there’s also a story of enduring human spirit, hope, and resilience.
As I engage with these readings and upcoming podcast episodes, I’m particularly keen to explore how these narratives of resistance and resilience intersect with and illuminate each other, shaping a comprehensive understanding of the Palestinian struggle and the broader implications for global discussions on conflict, identity, and human rights.”
While only 27% of students filled out the final course evaluations, their feedback was consistently positive. Students expressed a deep appreciation for such a course being offered during “real-time” conflict, and several made specific mentions of the opportunity to have a space to “collectively process unfolding trauma.” As one student respondent noted, “This course was unique as we followed a complex and current events topic regarding Palestine. It was emotionally and intellectually challenging; however, I am very glad that I took this course and, of course, grateful that the course was offered.” Similarly, another student wrote, “This was one of the best classes I have ever taken. It was transformative, timely, and desperately needed. It could not have come at a better or more impactful moment. This class should absolutely be included in the regular curriculum. I learned so much history that I had never learned before, and each educator approached the subject material in a way that was engaging. I am truly changed for the better from this class.”
As socially engaged educators, we believe we have an ethical responsibility to share scholarship and deepen our understanding of the fraught times in which we live, especially during periods of heightened crisis. Coming together as we did to teach and learn about the struggles of Palestinian peoples and to engage our students in difficult yet respectful dialogue was and continues to be an act of conscience and commitment. We fostered a learning space that defied the misrepresentations and manipulations circulating to justify crimes against humanity. Our course also reflected the power of collectivity in teaching through excruciating crises, allowing us to share labor while we were spread thin and to combine our different expertise to enrich our analyses. As colleagues in a school of interdisciplinary arts & sciences, the weekly class meetings were a material practice of solidarity and interdisciplinarity, an opportunity to refuse the isolation of addressing genocide as individual educators or siloed scholars and to rearticulate together the centrality of Palestinian liberation to other movements for justice. We concluded the course by encouraging our students to continue in their own efforts to learn and act collectively beyond the classroom, a call that would be subsequently answered by student encampments and liberated zones at many campuses across the U.S., including the UW’s main campus in Seattle.
Below, we have linked to readings, resources, and some of the publicly available lectures/presentations (shared with the speakers’ permission) offered throughout the quarter of teaching The Question of Palestine. We hope it may be of benefit to others.
IAS Teach-In on the Question of Palestine
Select Course Presentations:
Featuring Dr. Helga Tawil-Souri, Associate Professor in the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication and the Department of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at NYU. Dr. Tawil-Souri’s work deals with spatiality, technology, and politics in the Middle East, with a particular focus on contemporary life in Palestine-Israel. She is interested in how media technologies and infrastructures function as bordering mechanisms and, conversely, how territorial and physical boundaries or objects function as cultural and mediated spaces. Much of her published academic work has been about Palestinian im/mobility and infrastructure, which has taken checkpoints, mobile phones and internet, film, and questions of borders and space as its focal points. She has also written about Arab media, identification cards, surveillance, video games, and other topics.
Featuring Dr. Sarah Ihmoud, a Chicana-Palestinian anthropologist who works to uplift the lived experiences, histories, and political contributions of Palestinian women and Palestinian feminism. Her research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Wenner Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, the Palestinian American Research Center, and the National Endowment for Humanities. She is a founding member of the Palestinian Feminist Collective, a member of the executive board of Insaniyyat, the society of Palestinian Anthropologists, and is assistant professor of anthropology at the College of the Holy Cross.
Palestinian Political Prisoners
Featuring Dr. Ashjan Ajour who completed her PhD in Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London in August 2019. Her research interests and teaching experience are situated in political sociology; gender studies; political subjectivity; incarceration; decolonization and global indigenous politics. She taught in the United Kingdom and Palestine at Goldsmiths, Warwick University, and Birzeit University. She also worked as a Research Fellow in the Sociology Department at the University of Leicester, working on the ‘Decolonising the Curriculum’ research project. She is now a Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Wolverhampton. Her book, Reclaiming Humanity in Palestinian Hunger Strikes: Revolutionary Subjectivity and Decolonizing the Body won the prestigious international Palestine Book Award in 2022.
Psychoanalytic Practice and Resistance
Featuring Lara Sheehi, PsyD (she/her), Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychology at the Doha Institute of Graduate Studies, Qatar. Prior to DI, Dr. Sheehi was at the George Washington University’s Professional Psychology Program, where she was the founding faculty director of the Psychoanalysis and the Arab World Lab. Her work takes up decolonial and anti-oppressive approaches to psychoanalysis, with a focus on liberation struggles in the Global South. She is co-author with Stephen Sheehi of Psychoanalysis Under Occupation: Practicing Resistance in Palestine (Routledge, 2022), which won the Middle East Monitor’s 2022 Palestine Book Award for Best Academic Book. Dr. Sheehi is the President of the Society for Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalytic Psychology (APA, Division 39), co-editor of Studies in Gender and Sexuality and co-editor of Counterspace in Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society. Lara is also a contributing editor to the Psychosocial Foundation’s Parapraxis Magazine and on the advisory board for the USA-Palestine Mental Health Network. She is currently under contract with Pluto Press for her new book project, From the Clinic to the Street: Psychoanalysis for Revolutionary Futures.
Featuring Dr. Sophia Azeb (she/they), assistant professor of Black Studies in the Department of Critical Race and Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Dr. Azeb’s current book project, Another Country: Translational Blackness and the Afro-Arab, explores the currents of transnational and translational blackness charted by African American, Afro-Caribbean, African, and Afro-Arab peoples across twentieth-century North Africa and Europe. Prior to joining the faculty at UC Santa Cruz, Dr. Azeb was a member of the faculty collective that founded the Department of Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity at the University of Chicago. She is a frequent contributor to The Funambulist platform.
Palestine and International Law
Featuring Prof. Noura Erakat, one of the most recognized Palestinian voices in the US. She’s a human rights attorney and an Associate Professor at Rutgers University, New Brunswick in the Department of Africana Studies and the Program in Criminal Justice. Her research interests include human rights law, humanitarian law, national security law, refugee law, social justice, and critical race theory. Prof. Erakat is an editorial committee member of the Journal for Palestine Studies and a co-Founding Editor of Jadaliyya, an electronic magazine on the Middle East that combines scholarly expertise and local knowledge. She is the author of Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine (Stanford University Press, 2019), which won a Palestine Book Award. Her current research seeks to examine the activist praxes in contemporary renewals of Black-Palestinian solidarity as well as technologies of surveillance and counter-surveillance in greater East Jerusalem.
AUTHOR BIOS
Dr. Karam Dana is nationally and internationally recognized for his academic and public scholarship on Palestine, Middle Eastern politics, and American Muslims. He is founder of the American Muslim Research Institute at UW Bothell and author of the forthcoming book, To Stand With Palestine: Transnational Resistance and Political Evolution in the United States, published by Columbia University Press.
Dr. Maryam Griffin holds both a JD and PhD. Her areas of expertise include Palestine studies, mobility studies, Critical Race Theory, and critical ethnic studies. Dr. Griffin’s book, Vehicles of Decolonization: Public Transit in the Palestinian West Bank, published by Temple University Press was short-listed for the international Palestine Book Award in 2022.
Dr. Dan Berger is a scholar and public intellectual in the field of critical prison studies and the history of U.S. social movements. His most recent book is Stayed on Freedom: The Long History of Black Power Through One Family’s Journey, published by Basic Books in 2023. He coordinates the Washington Prison History Project and serves as IAS Associate Dean for Faculty Development and Scholarship.
Dr. Jed Murr’s scholarship focuses on race and racialization in a global context, Black political and aesthetic movements, and critical pedagogy. Dr. Murr is a former US Fulbright Scholar and currently serves as IAS Associate Dean for Diversity and Equity.
Dr. Brinda Sarathy is professor and dean of the School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences at the University of Washington Bothell. She is the author of several books and numerous articles on natural resource management, race, labor, political ecology, and environmental justice.