ATTEND | 'Reimagining Race and Technology,' 11/11/24

The Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race presents "Reimagining Race and Technology," a roundtable featuring emerging scholars working at the intersection of race and technology. Panelists will discuss how digital technology is deployed in war zones, how corporations manage access to democratic expression online, how digital surveillance works in U.S. higher education, and how race and racism appear in the digital collections at Columbia's Libraries. Their presentations will be followed by conversation and audience Q&A. Please reach out to cser@columbia.edu with any questions. 

SPEAKERS
Ali Musleh is Ibrahim Abu-Lughod Fellow at the Center for Palestine Studies here at Columbia. Prior to that, he was a researcher at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (UH-M) Hawaiʻi Research Center for Futures Studies. In 2022, he received his Ph.D. from the Department of Political Science at UHM, where he taught global politics and alternative futures. His first book project is titled To What Abyss Does This Robot Take the Earth? Using his dual background in design and political theory, he focuses on Israel's design, development, and deployment of drones, autonomous weapons, and artificial intelligence, treating them as technological processes of managing and differentiating forms of life.

Irina Kalinka is a Fellow, Society of Fellows at Columbia and a lecturer at the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society as well as the Department of English and Comparative Literature. A scholar of political theory and digital media with a global purview, Irina centers her research around platform studies, democracy, and digital publics. She completed her dissertation, "The Political Imaginary of User Democracy," in Modern Culture and Media at Brown University in 2023. In this project, Irina argues that tech-corporations promote and engender their own normative conceptualization of democracy through the services they oversee.

Madi Whitman is the Director of Undergraduate Studies and Assistant Director of Curriculum Development in the Center for Science and Society and a lecturer in the Department of Anthropology. As a sociocultural anthropologist and science and technology studies (STS) researcher, Madi studies how technologies, institutions, and subjectivities are made together. This research is currently animated by questions about surveillance and marginality in changing regimes of data collection in higher education in the United States. Prior to coming to Columbia, Madi was involved in collaborations with the National Science Foundation Center for Science of Information. Madi earned a Ph.D. in Anthropology from Purdue University in 2020, and was previously a Visiting Research Fellow in the Program on Science, Technology and Society at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

Brian Luna Lucero is the Digital Projects Librarian at Columbia University and a lecturer at the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race and in the History Department. He assists Columbia’s librarians and faculty in creating digital collections and exhibits from Columbia’s extensive physical archives. He has a Ph.D. in History from the University of New Mexico in 2012. His dissertation, "Invention and Contention: Memory, Place, and Identity in the American Southwest, 1848-1940," examines memory and commemoration of the Spanish colonial past in three Spanish settlements that grew into prominent American cities: Tucson, Arizona, Albuquerque, New Mexico, and San Antonio, Texas.

ATTEND | Settler Colonialism and Genocide: From Palestine to Turtle Island 10/17/24

Announcing “Settler Colonialism and Genocide: From Palestine to Turtle Island”, with J. Kēhaulani Kauanui and Rashid Khalidi. Introduced and moderated by Sean Jacobs, Mellon Initiative Fellow 2024/25.

We are thrilled to announce the first Mellon Initiative guest speaker event of the academic year. The talk, “Settler Colonialism and Genocide: From Palestine to Turtle Island”, will feature dialogue between Professors J. Kēhaulani Kauanui (Princeton University) and Rashid Khalidi (Columbia University). Sean Jacobs, Mellon Initiative Fellow 2024/25, will moderate the discussion. 

Both scholars are deeply engaged in research focusing on issues of settler colonialism and decolonization, indigeneity, race and ethnicity, nationalism and national identity, and other critical topics. This talk aims to bridge their work and explore connections between Palestine and Turtle Island.

SPEAKERS
J. Kēhaulani Kauanui, Ph.D. (Kanaka Maoli/Native Hawaiian) is Eric and Wendy Schmidt Professor of Indigenous Studies, Professor of Anthropology in the Effron Center for the Study of America and the Department of Anthropology at Princeton University. Her research focuses on Native American and global indigeneities, settler colonialism and decolonization, race and ethnicity, gender & sexuality, and anarchist politics. She is the author of Hawaiian Blood: Colonialism and the Politics of Sovereignty and Indigeneity (Duke University Press 2008); and Paradoxes of Hawaiian Sovereignty: Land, Sex, and the Colonial Politics of State Nationalism (Duke University Press 2018). She also has an edited book titled, Speaking of Indigenous Politics: Conversations with Activists, Scholars, and Tribal Leaders (University of Minnesota Press 2018) which includes select interviews drawing from her vast archive of a public affairs radio program, “Indigenous Politics: from Native New England and Beyond,” which was produced in the studios of WESU (Middletown, CT) from 2007-2013, and aired on over a dozen stations through the Pacifica Radio Network. Her work is widely published in a range of academic journals and edited books, and she also co-edits a book series on “Critical Indigeneities” for the University of Carolina Press. Kauanui is one of the six co- founders of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association, established in 2008. And she is the recipient of the Western History Association’s 2022 American Indian History Lifetime Achievement Award.

Rashid Khalidi is the Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies Emeritus at Columbia University. He received a B.A. from Yale University in 1970, and a D.Phil. from Oxford University in 1974. He has taught at the Lebanese University, the American University of Beirut, and the University of Chicago. He is a past President of the Middle East Studies Association, and was editor and then co-editor of the Journal of Palestine Studies.

Khalidi is the author of: The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017 [2020: MEMO Book Award]; Brokers of Deceit: How the U.S. has Undermined Peace in the Middle East [2013: Lionel Trilling Book Award; MEMO Book Award]; Sowing Crisis: American Dominance and the Cold War in the Middle East [2009]; The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood [2006]; Resurrecting Empire: Western Footprints and America’s Perilous Path in the Middle East [2004]; Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness [1997: Middle East Studies Association’s Albert Hourani Prize; reissued with a new introduction in 2010]; Under Siege: PLO Decision-making during the 1982 War [1986; reissued with a new preface in 2014]; and British Policy towards Syria and Palestine, 1906-1914 [1980]. His books have been translated into a dozen languages. He has written over 100 scholarly articles, and is the co-editor of Palestine and the Gulf [1982]; The Origins of Arab Nationalism [1991]; and The Other Jerusalem: Rethinking the History of the Sacred City [2020].  

Sean Jacobs is a professor of international affairs at The New School and publisher of Africa Is a Country. He was born and grew up in Cape Town, South Africa. His Mellon Initiative Fellowship project focuses on developing a handbook to provide foundational resources for research on decolonizing international affairs and reshape how the discipline is taught.

Presented by Mellon Initiative for Inclusive Faculty Excellence in the Office of the Provost, The New School.

APPLY | PARC 2025-2026 Research Fellowship, Travel Seminar, and Scholarship competitions

PARC 2025-2026 Research Fellowship, Travel Seminar, and Scholarship competitions

The Palestinian American Research Center is pleased to open its 2025-2026 competition cycle! Follow the links below for information about each opportunity and details about upcoming informational webinars for interested applicants.

2025-2026 PARC NEH Fellowships for Scholars Conducting Humanities Research in Palestine

2025–2026 PARC Fellowships for U.S. Scholars Conducting Research on Palestine

2025-2026 PARC Research Fellowships for Palestinian Scholars Focusing on Gaza

2025 PARC U.S. Faculty Development Seminar on Palestine Travel Fellowships

2025-2026 PARC Tanya Baker-Asad Scholarship for Palestinian Women Pursuing PhDs

ATTEND | Holding onto Palestine: Reimagining Anthropology at a Time of Genocide

Holding onto Palestine: Reimagining Anthropology at a Time of Genocide.
Insaniyyat Fourth Biennial Conference
12-15 September 2024 - Online

Keynote Lecture: “Unethical Anthropology and Anthropology of the Unethical” By Prof. Ghassan Hage Much like 1948 and 1967, 7 October 2023 ushered in a violent project of erasure and elimination of Palestinians as an indigenous population. While uncertainty, fear and anguish have been features of Palestinian daily life for decades, at this time of high-flame violence, with their habitat becoming spaces of blatantly visible non-life, questions of the meaning and practice of remaining present, of existence itself, have never been more urgent. These extreme times require a bold agenda for critical inquiry. How can anthropology make sense of contemporary mass killing, large scale physical destruction, genocidal rhetoric and transfer plans as colonial powers seek to destroy and empty Gaza while silencing criticism and dissent dissent around the world? How can the tools and concepts of anthropology respond to these violences in all their forms? In turn, what can Palestine, as one of the most protracted examples of occupation and colonial erasure, offer to the anthropology of genocide, settler-colonialism, de-colonization, indigeneity, and emancipatory ethics and knowledge? This Conference will explore these questions through a focus on several interconnected themes: processes and dynamics of elimination; forms of activist as well as everyday praxis and resistance and their epistemologies; and “convergences” and alliances between Palestine and experiences of the structural violence of Western colonial modernity elsewhere. We seek to reflect on the conditions for transversal politics and the kinds of epistemologies and knowledges generated in such everyday praxis and mobilizations.

Further details on registration and the conference program are coming soon. Please check the conference page regularly for updates.

APPLY | PARC Tanya Baker-Asad Scholarship for Gazan Women Pursuing PhDs

The Palestinian American Research Center announces the PARC Tanya Baker-Asad Scholarship for Gazan women pursuing PhDs in the humanities and social sciences. The Scholarship was established in honor of the late Tanya Baker-Asad, an anthropologist, a feminist, and a strong supporter of the Palestinian cause. A woman of great integrity and compassion, and with a strong sense of justice, Tanya Baker-Asad was a researcher and a teacher who remained steadfast in her commitment to improving the lives of women, particularly those living under conditions of hardship and political repression. The Tanya Baker-Asad Scholarship was established by Baker-Asad’s husband, Talal Asad. 

Applications due July 15, 2024
Awards announced August 15, 2024

Scholarship awards from $5,000 up to $25,000, with up to 5 awards given this cycle

Qualified applicants should either be enrolled or in the process of enrolling in a doctoral program in the humanities or social sciences at an accredited university anywhere in the world. The maximum Scholarship award for the academic year 2024-2025 is $25,000. The Scholarship may be used for any expenses related to the pursuit of the degree (e.g. tuition, research expenses, dissertation write-up support, living expenses).

Information about the fellowship competition:

  • Applicants must be women of Palestinian heritage from Gaza.

  • Applicants must be scholars enrolled, or in the process of enrolling in a PhD  program at an accredited university anywhere in the world. 

  • Fields of study include, but are not limited to, anthropology, sociology, economics, history, philosophy, religious studies, political science, psychology, geography, literature, languages and linguistics, archaeology, art history, media studies, and film studies.

  • The Scholarship can be used for any expenses related to the pursuit of the degree (e.g. tuition, research expenses, dissertation write-up support, living expenses).

  • Previous awardees are not eligible though previous applicants are encouraged to apply.

Applications include the following:

  • Application form

  • Personal statement (maximum 1,000 words)

  • Research statement (maximum 1,000 words)

  • Academic transcripts (BA, MA, and PhD if currently enrolled)

  • Curriculum Vitae

  • Budget (maximum of $25,000)

  • Other funding support

  • Information page from passport, laissez-passer, or travel document

  • Two letters of recommendation

Evaluation criteria:

  • Primary criterion is the overall excellence of the application

  • Clear and compelling statement of purpose

  • Qualifications demonstrate the potential to undertake or continue a PhD

  • Strong support from recommenders

The Tanya Baker-Asad Scholarship is supported by the Tanya Baker-Asad Fund

ATTEND | 75 Years of an Ongoing Nakba: The Question of Knowledge Production 05/20-23/24

To mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Institute for Palestine Studies in 2023 — which coincided with the 75th anniversary of the Nakba — the Institute for Palestine Studies is hosting its annual conference, titled “75 Years of an Ongoing Nakba: The Question of Knowledge Production.” The conference is set to open on Monday, May 20, in Beirut, with the participation of researchers, academics, and historians from Palestine and around the world. Additionally, sessions will take place in Birzeit, New York, and online. Originally slated to be held in late 2023, a new date for the conference was set, incorporating new content and themes. 

This conference comes at a crucial moment for the Palestinian cause, given the relentless Israeli onslaught on Gaza, which has lasted over 200 days and has targeted every pillar of Palestinian life. This is why the Institute for Palestine Studies sees the commitment to continue scholarly and research work as a vital form of resistance against the Zionist project. The Institute also believes that the current war is a part of the ongoing Nakba. 

The primary goal of this conference is to reassess the decades of intellectual and scholarly production about the Nakba — published in Arabic, English, French, and Hebrew — by examining the body of work comprehensively. The aim is to explore new perspectives on understanding this pivotal and foundational event in Palestinian history. 

The Nakba isn't merely a historical issue: it's a pressing concern of the present and future, as the Zionist project continues in its attempts to erase the memory of the Nakba, which is a cornerstone of the national identity of the Palestinian people. Today, more than ever, Palestinian people understand the importance of keeping the memory of Nakba alive and teaching it in schools, universities, and beyond. This is vital for fostering unity, navigating current challenges facing the national movement, and injecting renewed vigor into Palestinian political resistance. 

The conference is organized in collaboration with several research institutions in Palestine and worldwide, including Birzeit University, the American University of Beirut, Saint Joseph University of Beirut, the Orient-Institut Beirut, the Arab Council for Social Sciences, and the Center for Palestine Studies at Columbia University - New York.

Organized by the Institute for Palestine Studies, in partnership with Birzeit University, Center for Palestine Studies at Columbia University, ​​​The Palestine Land Studies Center (PLSC) at the American University of Beirut, Arab Council for the Social Sciences, Département d'Histoire-Relations Internationales de l'Université Saint-Joseph de Beyrouth, Orient-Institut Beirut (OIB).