Palestine and the Logic of Denial

Join us for 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.

For more info about Tolerance Is a Wasteland, click here.

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.