Brandeis Teach-In
On December 5, 2023, Brandeis University cancelled all classes to host an all-day teaching event.
In the aftermath of October 7th, the campus climate became increasingly heated and polarized. Concerns were raised to A&S leadership around internal hostilities, free expression, and disinformation, among others. After discussions with university leadership, the decision was made to cancel classes across campus.
In an attempt to move past accusations and recriminations, the event focused on topics related to Brandeis culture.
Now that this precedent has been set, future programming may take up the history and present moment of the Israel-Palestine conflict. We plan to provide further opportunities for meaningful, authentic conversation about the many challenging issues we face both at Brandeis and beyond.
Read more about this important event in Brandeis Stories and the Brandeis Justice.
Sessions and Additional Reading
This session will be an opportunity to think and practice dialogue and listening as a means to understanding.
Presenter: Erin Vicente (Senior Lecturer in the Brandeis International Business School)
In this session, faculty from the Legal Studies Program will discuss the parameters of the first amendment and how the courts have historically viewed restrictions on speech. More specifically, we will discuss the definition of hate speech and the limited exemptions to constitutionally protected speech in America.
Presenters: Dan Breen (Associate Professor of the Practice in Legal Studies), Roz Kabrhel (Associate Professor of the Practice in Legal Studies), and Melissa Stimell (Professor of the Practice in Legal Studies)
This session will offer some brief context for understanding police aggression in the USA, particularly as it relates to persecution along lines of race and class. It will also explore past practices of and conversations surrounding policing on Brandeis' campus, raising questions about whose "safety" is prioritized.
Presenters: Dan Kryder (Luis Stulberg Chair in Law and Politics), Janet McIntosh (Professor of Anthropology), and Chad Williams (Samuel J. and Augusta Spector Chair in History)
It is an axiom of politics that to win national elections, politicians must appeal in some way to the moderates who (at least traditionally) have made up so much of the voting public. 'Dog Whistles' are ways for these politicians to retain moderate support while also signaling to extremists that their hearts are with them, even if they can not come right out and say so. In this session, we will describe different kinds of 'dog whistles' and share examples of them, with a view towards assessing their relevance in the contemporary United States.
Presenters: Dan Breen (Associate Professor of the Practice in Legal Studies) and Jeffrey Lenowitz (Meyer and W. Walter Jaffe Associate Professor of Politics)
Social media platforms are a central space for debate and the circulation of information and images related to Israel and Palestine. In this session, we seek to understand what draws participants to use social media in these ways; what are the results, both positive and negative, of such interactions; and how participants can become more deliberate in their social media use.
Presenters: Laura Miller (Professor of Sociology); Sabine von Mering (Professor of German and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies)
How are the study of Judaism and Islam connected? What’s the experience of students from one religious tradition encountering another? What kinds of constructive interactions have happened between the study of Judaism and the study of Islam, and what might we envision?
Presenters: Carl Sharif El-Tobgui (Associate Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies and Director of the Arabic Language Program), Yuval Evri (Assistant Professor of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies on the Marash and Ocuin Chair in Ottoman, Mizrahi, and Sephardic Jewish Studies), Lynn Kaye (Associate Professor of Rabbinic Literature and Thought), Jon Levisohn (Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Associate Professor of Jewish Educational Thought), and Mariam Sheibani (Assistant Professor of Islamic Thought)
Why is moral disagreement different from – and harder than – other forms of disagreement? And how does political conflict and injustice make it even more difficult?
Presenter: Kate Moran (Associate Professor of Philosophy)
Professor Sheppard will look to the challenges related to the definition of antisemitism as a concept. Throughout Jewish history, different aspects of hostility towards Judaism and violence towards Jews have taken on different shapes and meanings. How do historians see the usefulness and dangers of applying "antisemitism" to contemporary phenomena? Specific recent definitions of the concept have been proposed and integrated even within the U.S. Civil Rights Act. Where does this particular definition come from and what are the implications as it relates to the current conflict between Israel and Hamas?
Professor Sarna's portion of this talk will tackle three questions: What do we know about Contemporary American Antisemitism and its sources? What's new and what's old? Why the special concern about antisemitism on college campuses?
Presenters: Laura Jockusch (Albert Abramson Associate Professor of Holocaust Studies), Jonathan Sarna (University Professor and Joseph H. and Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History), and Eugene Sheppard (Associate Professor of Modern Jewish History and Thought)
Islamophobia broadly refers to hostility to Muslims and Islam but covers a broad spectrum of sentiments and actions ranging from biased narrative logics to discrimination and hate crimes against Muslims and institutions associated with Islam. We will dissect the concepts, its history, and look at how demonization of Muslims became an electoral strategy.
Presenter: Jytte Klausen (Lawrence A. Wien Professor of International Cooperation)
Quick survey of the 2,000-year history of Christianity in Israel/Palestine, including its sacred sites and its diversity today. Many Palestinian Christians stand in tension with U.S. Christian Zionists and generally feel forgotten or overlooked by Western Christians. Some Christians define themselves as Aramaean and not as Palestinian or Arab at all. Many struggle to interpret passages from the Tanakh/Hebrew Bible/Old Testament in which some find a Jewish divine right to the land. Leaders fear that Christian sites will become like museums, with no living Christian communities to pray in and support them.
Presenter: Bernadette Brooten (Myra and Robert Kraft and Jacob Hiatt Professor of Christian Studies, Emerita)