Uncategorized Archives - Steve Salaita

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.

The Free Speech Exception to Palestine

Now that (even moderate) pro-Palestine sentiment has been effectively outlawed in both the public and private sectors, I hope we can say goodbye to the Western myth of “free speech” from which so many reactionaries built their careers.

The following is a reproduction, with slight modifications, of an article recently published in a special issue of Middle East Critique, “The Academic Question of Palestine,” edited by Walaa Alqaisiya and Nicola Perugini.

The title of this essay inverts a common phrase, “the Palestine exception to free speech,” first used by civil rights attorney Michael Ratner (2013) and later popularized by Maria LaHood of the Center for Constitutional Rights. While it is true that free speech protections often fail to accommodate criticism of Israel in various Western countries, the phrase assumes that the failure is out of character. An alternate view would suggest that exclusion of Palestine results from the limitations of free speech itself. As is often the case, the issue of Palestine exposes hypocrisy, myth, or deceit in the USA’s exceptional self-image.

My Worst Career Move: An Excerpt from “An Honest Living”

Amid a history of poor career choices, none was more damaging than this.

What follows is an excerpt from my new book, An Honest Living: A Memoir of Peculiar Itineraries. Told primarily from behind the wheel of a school bus—a vantage point from which I explore social anxiety, suburban architecture, political alienation, racial oppression, working-class solidarity, professional malfeasance, and the joy of chauffeuring children to and from school—An Honest Living describes a decade of turbulent post-professorial life and my recent return to the lectern. The book is available here and here.

With friends it’s fine to act like a fool. Professional spaces are more tenuous. Don’t get me wrong, you’re definitely allowed to act like a fool in professional spaces, but the foolishness needs to comply with a certain etiquette. Ghosting colleagues and skipping social functions to smoke weed are a no-no. The professionals prefer foolishness of a loutish or belligerent variety, not the kind that makes life more peaceful.

The Customs of Obedience in Academe

A longform reflection on the interplay between obedience and disobedience in the modern corporate university.

I once had an acquaintance who nearly rose to the level of friend. Before forming a personal relationship, we had known of each other for many years and had even met on one occasion, quite by chance, outside of an ice cream shop in Ramallah. We were young then, both in graduate school, both figuring out what it meant for us, born in the United States, to be Palestinian. We chatted with a mutual friend serving as mediator and then went our separate ways, aware of each other’s existence in subsequent years through a tight-knit but complicated network of Arab Americans.

Arab Americans Won’t Be Shamed into Voting for Joe Biden

Some Arab American individuals might vote for Biden this November, but the community as a whole won’t forget his endorsement of genocide.

I grew up in the Arab American community. I have a large extended family who claim the identity (along with my nuclear family). I know the community well, both personally and sociologically, and both in its working class and professional iterations. It is my opinion that liberals who expect Arab Americans to forget about Biden’s endorsement of Zionist genocide when November comes around are profoundly mistaken.