The Center for Palestine Studies (CPS) and Middle East Institute (MEI) at Columbia University are committed to offering K-12 teachers and college-level instructors the tools to both understand and teach critical issues of dispossession, belonging, and citizenship in the context of Palestine/Israel. Many of the issues that arise in this context could be productively integrated into the K-12 and college-level curricula.
CPS and MEI invite you to a teachers' workshop held at Columbia University, June 20, 2015 on citizenship and nationality in Israel/Palestine and its history more broadly. The workshop will focus on the challenges of establishing a state in 1948 that committed itself to be both Jewish and democratic; the status of the Palestinian minority in such a state; and the critical differences between a "homeland," a "nation," and a "state". The workshop will include a set of short readings that will be distributed in advance for discussion.
The day-long workshop will be based on an Open University curriculum designed by Katherine Franke, Director of the Open University and Professor of Law at Columbia University, who will teach the course. Drawing on comparisons with the US legal system and establishment of the United States as a nation-state, Franke will give an overview of the issues at hand, offering teachers tools that will allow them to go back to their own classrooms and teach a unit on Israel/Palestine.
We welcome participation from public and private school teachers, as well as, college-level instructors. A limited travel subsidy will be available for teachers coming from out town.
Location: Knox Hall, Room 208
606 West 122nd Street (between Broadway and Claremont Avenue)
Registration fee: $30 (paid by check made out to Columbia University, collected on the day of the Workshop)
Please e-mail palestine@columbia.edu to register. Please include your name, affiliation, a short bio, why you are interested in the workshop and how it fits in with your teaching.