A professor at Rutgers University, Jasbir Puar wrote a book titled The Right to Maim that levels accusations against Israel so outlandish that they strain credulity—and lack any evidence to sustain them. Yet the book was published by Duke University’s prestigious press, received an award from the National Women’s Studies Association, and is now on the syllabus of a course at Princeton University. Cary Nelson writes:
The course presents itself “as a decolonizing process” that “enables students to re-politicize personal trauma as it intersects with global legacies of violence, war, racism, slavery, patriarchy, colonialism, orientalism, homophobia, ableism, capitalism, and extractivism.” Whenever you see these terms jammed together you know you are in the presence of a political agenda, and more than that, a course of ideological indoctrination.
Puar’s book and [this] course apparently share more than anti-Zionism. They also share their dedication to a degraded version of humanistic study, one that replaces evidence with political buzz words. You recite the litany of sacred terms and thereby prove your commitment and your worth. There was a time when a serious study of decolonization alone merited a book or a course. Now you have to pack in patriarchy, homophobia, and so forth.
Is there a silver lining in all this? Perhaps. If anti-Semitism is packed together with all these other concepts, it will lose its meaning along with the others. The whole edifice should collapse with only the smallest encouragement from the rest of us. If not, it proves itself, however hateful, a fool’s errand to boot.
Read more on Jewish Journal: https://jewishjournal.com/commentary/opinion/361467/why-would-duke-publish-a-book-full-of-malicious-unproven-allegations-against-israel/