Steve Salaita

The Meaning of Honesty in Academe

A transcript of the 2025 James Baldwin Memorial Lecture at UMass-Amherst, delivered on April 16.

I’ll begin with a comment that may or may not resonate: the United States is going to hell.

Is this comment an observable fact or is it merely a perception? If observable, then based on what metrics? If perception, then what are the conditions that might lend it credence?

No Resurrection: The Life and Death of the Modern University

A transcript of comments delivered at Villanova University on April 14, 2025.

My first academic job was at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. I was extremely lucky to have landed that job. I was fresh out of graduate school and had mailed off around 150 applications between September and December. It was 2003. These things were still done in hard copy back then.

Arab Americans, Ignore the Haters: Rejecting Kamala Harris was the Right Thing to Do

Arab Americans are facing vicious pushback for refusing to abandon Palestine, but people interested in a better world should follow our lead instead of mourning the neoliberal order.

The depth and scope of racism now directed at Arab Americans is staggering. Many liberals are looking for somebody to blame for Kamala Harris’s dismal showing in the recent election and have found the perfect scapegoat in Arab Americans (along with Muslim Americans more broadly, anti-Zionists of all backgrounds, and, unbelievably, the Palestinians currently suffering a genocide).

Your Crisis of Faith is not My Concern (There’s a Genocide Going on)

Understanding the Zionist mentality means acknowledging a kind of logic beyond the emotional capacity of functional human beings.

All the cruelty livestreamed onto our electronic devices has undone the old political order. There are no more liberal Zionists, lowkey Zionists, cultural Zionists, soft Zionists, progressive Zionists, apathetic Zionists, ambivalent Zionists, non-Zionists, or post-Zionists. Now only two categories matter: Zionist and anti-Zionist.

I might go so far as to argue that not identifying as anti-Zionist is itself a form of Zionism, which I suppose is another way of saying that ignorance of or indifference to Gaza is unacceptable.

Let America Be Your Periphery

Republicans and Democrats are both hellbent on exterminating Palestinians. At best they’re merely indifferent to the extermination. Let’s not allow them to also kill our imagination.

Like everyone else concerned with Palestinian life, I’ve been thinking a lot about what can be done to stop the current genocide. The very notion feels ridiculous given that ruling classes across the world are invested in Palestine’s destruction. That’s no reason to stop, though; it’s actually a fantastic incentive to keep going. Long odds are the upshot of any good politics.

Some Lessons about Zionism and Anti-Zionism from an Ongoing Genocide

If you knew anything of Zionism, then Israel’s current bloodlust is no surprise.

Ostensible supporters of Palestine who dissembled or backed down after October 7 in deference to the Zionist entity deserve to suffer endless shame. Not because they made an error of judgment; not because they got suckered by a propaganda campaign; not because they ignored more skeptical colleagues; not even because in their haste to disassociate from Palestinian resistance they validated the rationale for genocide. They should be shamed for knowing so little about Zionism.

Down with the Zionist Entity; Long Live “the Zionist Entity”

There is no vocabulary that will make Palestinians acceptable in the eyes of our oppressor.

Since the acceleration of the Zionist entity’s genocide, we’ve seen lots of debate about language and terminology. It’s a common kind of debate, usually more annoying than enlightening, especially when it occurs among thought-leaders in the Anglosphere. As Gaza suffers incalculable horror, a parade of sophisticates has decided that it’s of paramount importance for Palestinians to look presentable. Their interventions are the intellectual equivalent of a grandparent insisting that if you die in a car crash it’s important to be wearing clean underwear.

Literary Criticism in a Time of Genocide

Exploring disaffection as a critical practice.

Below is a transcript of the keynote speech I delivered for the 14^th Conference on East-West Cross-Cultural Relations at the American University in Cairo.

How the fuck am I supposed to teach Mark Twain?

I repeated this question as I sat on the bus traveling to campus. It was my first time meeting classes since October 7. I would be walking onto the same campus, but the world in which it is situated had forever changed. Trying to separate campus from Palestine was no more viable than trying to separate Christ from the crucifix.

An Excerpt from Daughter, Son, Assassin

The following is an excerpt from my first novel, Daughter, Son, Assassin, just published by Common Notions Press. To set the scene: Fred Baker, one of the main characters, has just been arrested in an unnamed desert kingdom for publicly criticizing its government and finds himself thinking about his wife, Lara, and daughter, Nancy.

Our (Your) Pitiful Ethics!: A Response to Zadie Smith’s “Shibboleth”

In its apparent nothingness, Zadie Smith’s essay “Shibboleth” tells us plenty about how genocide can be rationalized.

Since the publication of her debut novel, White Teeth (2000), Zadie Smith has been a darling of tastemakers across the Atlantic. Much of her ensuing work feels like a love letter to the forces who anointed her into literary stardom. Twenty-four years on, she continues to repay the favor.