Author Archives: E Wayne Ross

NFJP Statement for the New Academic Semester

January 20, 2025

As we enter 2025, we are full of grief and rage at the US-funded ongoing Israeli genocide of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. After more than 470 days of harrowing brutality that has targeted hospitals, schools, universities, and tens, if not hundreds of thousands, of Palestinians, the incoming Trump administration secured a ceasefire from the intransigent Netanyahu administration. Credible reports indicate that this ceasefire, which began on Sunday January 19, is contingent on a set of promises to the Israeli prime minister that include, above all, the annexation of the West Bank. The scope and breadth of the dispossession to come may well surpass these expectations.

Faculty for Justice in Palestine chapters across North America will face many challenges in the days, weeks, and months to come. As we fight to keep our voices strong, and in solidarity with those of our student allies, we must follow the lead of Palestinian scholars in the Gaza Strip who have called on us to support their efforts to rebuild in the wake of scholasticide, a term Karma Nabulsi coined in 2009 to name Israel’s systematic destruction of Palestinian education.

Since October 2023, armed and abetted by the United States, Israeli forces have destroyed eighty percent of the schools and every single university in the Gaza Strip. These include: the Islamic University of Gaza, the University College of Applied Sciences, Al-Azhar University, Al-Aqsa University, Palestine Technical College, Al-Quds Open University, Gaza University and Al-Israa University. Since October 2023, armed and abetted by the United States, Israeli forces have also destroyed nearly every library, archive, and cultural center in the Gaza Strip. The Gaza Municipal Library, the Islamic Manuscript Library, and all municipal archives have been reduced to rubble: centuries of endowments, collections and documents are all gone.

As we wage our struggles in the ever-shrinking space available for speaking the truth about Palestine in the United States, here are some tools to center Palestine and Palestinian voices:

Scholars Against the War in Palestine toolkit: https://scholarsagainstwar.org/toolkit/
Librarians and Archivists with Palestine: https://librarianswithpalestine.org/gaza-report-2024/; especially their One Book, Many Communities events: https://librarianswithpalestine.org/campaigns-2/onebookcampaign/;
Institute for Palestine Studies articles and reports such as this one by Abdel Latif Zaki Abu Hashem: https://www.palestine-studies.org/ar/node/1655344;
the Right to Education Campaign at Birzeit University: https://right2edu.birzeit.edu/

FJP chapters across the United States now confront the torrent of repression and punishment of academic speech that the Trump administration has promised, likely intensifying the repression of the Biden administration. As we move into 2025, National FJP will work in coalition with other organizations committed to defending academic speech, including the Middle East Studies Association of North America, Palestine Legal, the Coalition to End Zionist Repression, AAUP and AAUP/AFT 6741, and the Center for Academic Freedom, among others. We know that standing up against scholasticide in Palestine is also an act of standing up for our own universities, where corporatization, securitization, and austerity politics are rapidly eroding higher education, academic freedom, and other basic rights. We know that taking ethical positions against genocide, no matter what our opponents call us, is the only way forward. We applaud the brave people who have made these positions possible through the work of local FJP chapters and at various academic associations and institutions.

And we listen to Palestinian scholars in the Gaza Strip who remind us: “We built these universities from tents. And from tents, with the support of our friends, we will rebuild them once again.”

Steering Committee, Faculty for Justice in Palestine, National Network

Conference Call for Papers – Starting Over: Mass Politics and the Future of the Left

Alternate Routes: A Journal of Critical Social Research and the University of Naples Federico II invite individual paper and panel submissions for our 48th annual conference and special issue Call For Papers. Topics may include but are not limited to: Inequality and (De)Democratization; Left Economic Policy and Labour Market Restructuring; War, Imperialism and Colonialism; Race, Gender and Other Disparities; Austerity and the State; Climate Change; Digital Labour and Platforms; Unions and Social Movements; Populism and Political Realignment; Global Governance.

The deadline for conference submissions has been extended to: January 1, 2025. Please see the attached CFP or below for more information. We would appreciate if you could share with any departmental colleagues and networks you believe may be interested.

Starting Over: Mass Politics and the Future of the Left Conference and Special Issue Call For Papers

Organizing Committee: Carlo Fanelli, York University; Francesca Gabbriellini, University of Bologna; Luca Mandara, University of Naples Federico II; Marco Marrone, University of Salento; Salvatore Prinzi, University of Naples Federico II; Heather Whiteside, University of Waterloo

When: May 27-30, 2025

Where: University of Naples Federico II

From the economic downturn of the early-2000s, to the Great Recession and COVID-19 crisis, the last twenty-five years have been characterized by mounting economic volatility and accompanying political unrest. While precipitating this period, the broadly defined “left” has increasingly shown itself to be a spent force – either unable to convince the masses that real alternatives to market rule do exist, or abject failures in their ready willingness to reproduce the status quo.

The decline of organized labour as a social and political force, combined with social movements’ recurring inability to scale-up demands, has exacerbated the decoupling of class from political identity. In its place, the radical right has thrived as evinced by the mainstreaming of neofascist politics, rise of authoritarian populisms and accompanying assault on democratic rights and freedoms. Despite a working class larger and more heterogeneous than ever, a yawning chasm now separates the left from working class politics. In this void have flourished deepening forms of anti-politics, from political disengagement to acquiescence of authoritarian rule. How has the working class and left been transformed? What accounts for the growing divide? What is the next new left project? And how can left movements challenge wider forms of depoliticization?

To submit your proposal, please click HERE or visit www.alternateroutes.ca.

UBC Faculty for Palestine: Statement of Support for Professor Litsa Chatzivasileiou

Statement of Support for Professor Litsa Chatzivasileiou
UBC Faculty for Palestine

November 25 2024

We write as members of University of British Columbia’s Faculty for Palestine, a solidarity network of over 100 members. We express our strong support for Professor Litsa Chatzivasileiou, who has been the target of unauthorized classroom surveillance and a smear campaign for her teaching on Palestine. On September 18, Professor Chatzivasileiou gave a lecture in her course titled “Global Issues and Social Justice” drawing on a series of scholarly sources, including the internationally recognized work of Palestinian scholar Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian and legal scholar Khaled Beydoun. During this lecture, Professor Chatzivasileiou was audio-recorded by an unknown person in violation of university policy.

A 12-minute recording of her lecture was shared with a journalist and subsequently two factually incorrect and inflammatory articles were released by CTV News Vancouver on November 20th and 21st. The headlines falsely claim that UBC is investigating her, a clear case of misreporting as there is no investigation happening or pending. Not only is she not being investigated, but in fact Campus Security at UBC is investigating numerous threats against Dr. Chatzivasileiou and her family that have resulted from this smear campaign. The article grossly misrepresented Professor Chatzivasileiou’s rigorously researched lecture, misquoting her in the written article and randomly deploying Youtube footage from a 2012 lecture for the video newsclip version. What CTV News describes as a “rant” was a careful elaboration of the critical thinking of important legal and feminist scholarship on the impact of the genocide on Gaza. It was delivered by an instructor with more than 20 years’ experience teaching at UBC who is beloved by her students as well as her colleagues and staff. The CTV segment falsely implied that Professor Chatzivasileiou’s words and actions were antisemitic – an assertion that we categorically reject.

This is not simply a case of poor journalistic standards as articles in this vein have real consequences. Since the publication of the article, Dr. Chatzivasileiou has received numerous threats of physical and sexual violence against her and her family. Such threats are meant to create a chilling effect in university classrooms, erecting obstacles to teaching and discussing the most pressing issues of our times. These intimidations constitute alarming threats to the academic freedoms of faculty and students and therefore fundamentally endanger the mission of the university.

Furthermore, according to UBC’s Principles for Recording Classroom Activities dated September 2021 students must seek recording permission from faculty and other students in the course directly “either from the instructor or through the academic accommodation process.” No such permission or accommodation was sought in Dr. Chatzivasileiou’s class. Even when the proper permissions are sought “such recordings are made for personal academic use, and are not for distribution (within or beyond the course)” according to UBC’s policies. The unauthorized taping of Dr. Chatzivasileiou’s class therefore violated not only university policy protecting faculty but also the rights of her students. There has been no prior or subsequent student complaint or grievance filed about the class, further suggesting that Dr. Chatzivasileiou was deliberately targeted for harassment. Absent a filed university complaint, the delay between the recording (September 18) and the release of the articles (November 20 and 21) suggests the goal was not to address a classroom situation but to publicly discredit and cause harm to Dr. Chatzivasileiou.

Misinformation and information warfare have served to dehumanize the Palestinian people and legitmize the Israeli state’s current campaign of genocide in Gaza and the West Bank. As faculty in support of Palestinian liberation, we firmly believe that rigorous education based on scholarship and faculty’s expertise–like the teaching of Dr. Chatzivasileiou– is more critical than ever. Surveillance, threats, and intimidation campaigns aim to silence faculty and students, and inhibit their rights to academic freedom, education, and freedom of expression. These smear campaigns are dangerous affronts to the university and all its community members.

We call for UBC to immediately 1) reiterate and uphold the university policy banning the unauthorized recording and sharing of lectures and classroom discussions; 2) reaffirm faculty and students’ rights to academic freedom with regards to education on Palestine, Palestinian liberation, and the Israeli state’s apartheid policies, military occupation, and genocide; 3) confirm, contrary to CTV’s claims, that no investigation of Dr. Chatzivasileiou has occurred; and 4) provide material support for faculty like Dr. Chatzivasileiou who are targeted and defamed through surveillance and smear campaigns.

Endorsed by:

Graduate Students for Palestine–UBC
Independent Jewish Voices–UBC
Jewish Faculty Network–UBC
UBC Social Justice Centre
UBC Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights
UBC Staff for Palestine

In conversation: Professor E Wayne Ross and Professor Alpesh Maisuria

I was delighted to conduct a seminar and reading group exploring critical social education in September 2024 at with the Education and and Childhood Research Group at University of the West of England. ECRG is lead by Professor Alpesh Maisuria and here is a short “in conversation” between Professor Maisuria and me.

Critical Education v15 n4 – Just published

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New issue of Critical Education just published. Critical Education15(4): https://ices.library.ubc.ca/index.php/criticaled/index

Table of Contents

Designing Curriculum for Critical Consciousness: A White Teacher’s Process
Allarie Coleman

“Maybe Tightening the Collar is the Way to Do It”: Naturalizing Oppression in Teacher Discourse on Student Learning

Hope Kitts

Playing Around: Basketball Personhoods as Sites of Dialogue, Education Research, and Epistemic Disobedience
Juan F. Carrillo, Dan Heiman, Noah De Lissovoy

“I just can’t say ‘Fuck it, and walk away’”: Classing Labor in Neoliberal Academia

Maiyoua Vang

Literacies of the Heart and Antiracist Pedagogy

Lilia Monzo, Elena Marquez

The Body in the Classroom after Covid-19: An Exercise in Pedagogical Reflexivity

Molly Wiant Cummins

Using Virtual Learning Labs to (Re)Mediate Exclusionary Discipline Practices for Young Children of Color with Disabilities
Saili Kulkarni, Sunyoung Kim, Nicola Holdman

Call for submission: Heed the Call of the Dreamers! Imagination and the Frontiers of Critical Scholarship

Heed the Call of the Dreamers! Imagination and the Frontiers of Critical Scholarship

Guest Editor
Abraham P. DeLeon
University of Texas at San Antonio

What happens when critical scholarship takes seriously, the potentials imbued within a collective social imagination? What occurs when radical ways of knowing and doing activate the imagination that points to a different kind of past, present, and future? These kinds of questions are what I hope will inspire the papers I am seeking for this special issue in Critical Education. The empiricism that dominates much of academic scholarship, especially within the social sciences and education in particular, casts aside the transformative potentials of the imagination. Concerned too much with measurement, validity, replicability, and fundable projects that reify a particular kind of reality, mainstream scholarship does not engage with an imaginary that animates humanity’s potentials that is radical, creative, imaginative, and weird. The imagination runs through our social body like connective tissue, capillaries of radical potentiality. Our history is imbued with the imaginary, crossing not only fictional works that appear in film or literature for just two examples, but also that have animated a utopian impulse of a radical kind of difference: a different future, a different world, a different way of being with each other.

The imagination cannot be reduced to simply cognition or a neuro-functionality that activates a purely Western, scientific understanding. A radical social imagination can begin from a place of nowhere (Ricoeur, 2024), a non-space that allows a new kind of freedom of form to materialize that exists beyond scientific discourses that try to ensure its capture. Like Sartre’s (1948) work that the imagination has the potentials for negation, freedom, and engagement with nowhere, this special issue wants to explore the limits and potentials for the imagination for a radical and different kind of social imaginary. This space of nowhere becomes a productive frontier for larger questions about the future, the potentials for social action, and the possibilities for new epistemological, ontological, and pedagogical encounters. This special issue is a call for us to begin a new kind of radical project that attempts to break free from the current shackles of this intellectual culture, what Foucault (1998) might have called “inventing a new body”, one that is “volatile” and “diffused” (p. 226-227). We heed the call of the dreamers and allow the imagination to burst furth in new scholarly directions.

Here are some possible provocations to guide a submission, but are just meant to act as creative sparks.

I welcome any submission with a creative and imaginative vision for the past, present, and future.

What have been past historical examples by a variety of political, creative, or other affinity groups animated by the imagination?

What would it mean to embody a rhetoric of the future?
How can the avant-garde animate scholarship in new imaginative directions?
Do historical or cultural myths possess a generative moment that can inform social theory in fundamentally new ways?
What happens when social theory engages with the imagination? What kind of transformations are possible?
How can the imagination inform political organizing in fundamentally new ways?
What happens with social theory when it embodies the fictional worlds of a social imagination?
What become the limits of inquiry when the imagination is activated?
What would it mean to decolonize the future? How do indigenous ways of knowing inform our futures?
What kind of alternative futures emerge when we utilize an imaginative lens?
What are some examples of indigenous or non-Western forms of imagination that are instructive or visionary?
What do specific genres of fiction (horror, science fiction, fantasy, historical fiction, romance) offer the critical scholarly project?
How can fiction and creative writing inform social and critical theories?

The editor is available for any inquiries or questions on ideas about potential manuscripts and encourages conversations around potential ideas. Please email him at abraham.deleon@utsa.edu.

Manuscripts will be due on May 1^st, 2025. Please see the guidelines for submissions at Critical Education: https://ices.library.ubc.ca/index.php/criticaled/about/submissions#authorGuidelines

References

Foucault, M. (1998). Aesthetics, method, and epistemology: Essential works of Foucault, 1954-1984, Vol. 2. (R. Hurley and Others, ). The New Press.

Ricœur, P., Taylor, G. H., Sweeney, R. D., Amalric, J.-L., & Crosby, P. F. (2024). Lectures on imagination. The University of Chicago Press.

Sartre, J.-P. (1948). The psychology of imagination. (B. Frechtman, Trans.). Philosophical Library.

Research seminar at UWE Education and Childhood Research Group

I was delighted to have the opportunity to lead a research seminar with the Education and Childhood Research Group at the University of the West of England in Bristol this week.

The seminar was titled “Critical Social Education: Insurgent Pedagogies & Dangerous Citizenship” and explored how social studies education in the Americas is being used to contribute in significant ways to creating a society where individuals have the power and resources to realize their own potential and free themselves from the obstacles of classism, racism, sexism, and other inequalities often encouraged by schools, the state, and oppressive ideologies.

The seminar also framed the role and nature of social studies education in the Americas, with an emphasis on critical perspectives in the field, drawing on my recently published edited collection, The Social Studies Curriculum: Purposes, Problems, and Possibilities (5th Edition, SUNY Press) as well other critical scholars including contributors to the book Insurgent Social Studies: Scholar-Educators Disrupting Erasure and Marginality (2022, Myers Education Press), edited by Natasha Hakimali Merchant, Sarah B. Shear and Wayne Au.

I also touched on related research on social studies in the Latin American context based on the book Social Studies Education in Latin America: Critical Perspectives from the Global South, which I edited with Sebastián Plá.

The ECRG is led by Alpesh Maisuria, Professor of Education Policy in Critical Education at UWE Bristol, who I thank for the opportunity.

I also want to thank UWE Bristol education Professor Jane Andrews for the chance to participate in their monthly reading group which discussed a recent chapter of mine titled “Society, Democracy, and Economics: Challenges for Social Studies and Citizenship Education in a Neoliberal World”. I enjoyed the lively and diverse discussion.

Call for manuscript reviewers – Critical Education

Critical E ducation is a looking to expand its pool of manuscript reviewers.

If you are interested in contributing to the broad, multi-disciplinary field of critical education by participating in the peer review process, we encourage you to register with Critical Education as a reviewer.

We define critical education broadly as a field or approach that works theoretically and practically toward social change and addresses social injustices that result from various forms of oppression in globalized capitalist societies and under neoliberal governance.

We are looking for reviewers with expertise from across the broad range of education scholarship including but not limited to various: forms of research (e.g., empirical, theoretical, philosophical), contexts (e.g., early childhood, primary and secondary education, higher education, informal and popular education), conceptual orientations (e.g., critical pedagogy, anarchism, Marxism, critical postmodernism) and subfields (e.g., anti-racism, alternative education, critical and media literacy, disability studies, gender and sexuality, de/colonial and Indigenous education, leadership and policy studies, climate, outdoor, and place-based education, teacher education, solidarity and social movements, disciplinary subjects, etc.).

Critical Education uses a double-blind review process and follows the guidelines and practices of the Committee on Publication Ethics.

How do I sign up as a reviewer for Critical Education?

If you are already a registered user of the journal, sign in and from the drop-down menu below your username (top-right corner) choose View Profile > Role > check Reviewer box and list the key words that describe your areas of expertise. Before closing the profile window be sure to click the Save button on the bottom left of the page.

If you are not yet registered with Critical Education, use the Register link at the top of the journal home page and create an account. When creating your profile be sure to check the Reviewer role box and list the key words that describe your areas of expertise. Don’t forget to click the Save button.

Founded in 2010, Critical Education is an international, diamond open-access (no fees to read or publish), peer-reviewed journal, which publishes articles that critically examine contemporary education contexts and practices. Critical Education is published by the Institute for Critical Education Studies and hosted by The University of British Columbia Library. Critical Education is indexed in a number of scholarly databases including Scopus, EBSCO, DOAJ, and ERIC and is a member of the Free Journal Network. For more about Critical Education see: https://ices.library.ubc.ca/index.php/criticaled/about