ATTEND | Visualizing Gaza: Healing, Recovery, and Restoration at Brown University, 04/16/26

Visualizing Gaza: Healing, Recovery, and Restoration
Center for Middle East Studies, Brown University

Watson School of International and Public Affairs, 111 Thayer Street

This event discusses the possibilities of visualizing Gaza’s healing, recovery and rebuilding and the restoration of its demolished heritage. The talk will follow the “Phoenix of Gaza XR” exhibit and explore the use of media, urban planning, digital archiving, and virtual reality in Gaza before and during the war. In doing so, it will also examine how digitization, urban planning, visualization and virtual reality technologies can be applied toward repair and reconstruction to advance restorative justice and revitalization.

SPEAKERS
Ahlam Muhtaseb is a professor of media studies at California State University, San Bernardino (CSUSB) and a senior data justice fellow with Princeton’s Ida B. Wells Just Data Lab. She has an M.A. in Journalism and a Ph.D. in Communication Studies from the University of Memphis, Tennessee. She is the recipient of the 2024 Women Support Organization’s Distinguished Woman of the Year award and the 2024 Activism and Social Justice Scholarly Influence Award by the National Communication Association’s (NCA’s) Activism and Social Justice Division. She is also the recipient of the 2020 CSUSB Outstanding Scholarship, Research and Creative Activities Award and the 2019-20 Outstanding Research and Creative Activity Faculty Mentor Awardees. In 2019, she won the Rebuilding Alliance “Story Teller” Award. Her research interests include digital communication, digital resistance, decolonization, social justice and diasporic communities. She is the co-founder and faculty director of the Gaza xReal project: The Phoenix of Gaza.

Mazen Iwaisi is currently an Ibrahim Abu-Lughod Fellow Academic Year 2025-26 at Columbia University. He earned his PhD from Queen’s University Belfast, examining the concept of Archaeolopolitics in the Making of the Palestinian National Spatial Plan, with funding from the Palestinian American Research Center and Corrymeela Community in Northern Ireland. Mazen is currently working with Brian Boyd, Jamal Barghouth and other scholars on the Archaeology of the Nakba project “From Memory to Place.”

Naim Abu Raddi is currently a Data Justice Fellow at Princeton University. He is also pursuing a PhD in media studies and teaching in the Department of Media Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. He is the co-founder and co-director of the Phoenix of Gaza XR, a nationally and internationally recognized immersive media project that documents life in Gaza, highlighting its history, culture, and resilience.

Orwa Switat is a postdoctoral research associate in Palestinian studies at the Center for Middle East Studies at Brown University. Switat is an urban planning scholar with degrees in philosophy, political science, and urban planning. He focuses on the status of groups in planning theory and practice. He has been a Religion and Public Life Fellow in Conflict and Peace at Harvard Divinity School and a visiting scholar in the Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning at Tufts University. In his research, he integrates digitization and visualization with discourse and planning analysis to uncover hidden histories, restore lost heritages, spatialize oral histories, visualize counter-hegemonic narratives, and develop innovative restorative planning approaches.

ATTEND | The Phoenix of Gaza at Hunter College, 04/15-16/26

For two days, Hunter College is hosting the Pheonix of Gaza. Join us to partake in a one-of-a-kind experience that uses thousands of images and 360° video footage shot in 2022 to immerse viewers into life in Gaza – from wedding celebrations to street life, to cultural monuments that now lie in ruins. 

Sign up for a 30 minute slot to experience The Virtual Reality Phoenix of Gaza Exhibit using this link.

Enter Gaza through the eyes of its people. At Hunter's Blackbox Theater we are hosting a Virtual Reality project by Dr.Ahlam Muhtaseb and researchers at the x-Real Lab of California State University San Bernardino through a VR headset and tons of footage, offers an immersive view of Gaza as documented by its artists and journalists in 2022. Read more about the project here.

In addition to the Phoenix of Gaza, there are two evenings of programming with dinner to celebrate “Gaza the dignified and resilient” (غزة العزة والصمود) and the Palestinians who insist on dignity, resilience, and beauty as they resist its erasure.

April 15, Panel 1: Archiving Against Erasure
6:00pm-8:00pm 
Ahlam Muhtaseb (keynote)
Sireen Sawalha, Nasser Abou-Rahme, and Mazen Iwaisi

April 16, Panel 2: Life Making as Resistance
6:00pm-8:00pm
Musical event with Zafir Tawil
Hadeel Assali, Rana Barakat, and Mohammed Mhawish
RSVP required, you can rsvp for the panels and dinner here.

All events will be held at the Black Box Theater: Hunter North 543

ATTEND | Impunity and Disavowal in a Time of Genocide by Nadia Abu El-Haj, 03/30/26

Nadia Abu El-Haj delivers the Annual Lecture on Racial and Social Justice at Stanford University’s Department of Anthropology on Monday, March 30, 2026.

Impunity and Disavowal in a Time of Genocide
There have long been debates about bystanders to genocide and other forms of mass violence. What did they know? How did they just “go along”? If Hannah Arendt famously argued that in Nazi Germany there was "nothing but propaganda”, can the same be said with respect to a very different political regime and media environment that characterizes contemporary Israel? In this paper, I explore practices of denial, disavowal and impunity through which I sketch a portrait of Israeli society amid the genocide in Gaza.

CALL | SOAS Centre for Palestine Studies 11th Graduate Research Seminar, 04/01/26

Call for Papers: SOAS Centre for Palestine Studies 11th Graduate Research Seminar 

Amid the ongoing genocide in Gaza and continued Western enablement of the Zionist colonial project on all fronts of engagement, it is imperative to cultivate fresh scholarship on the material, social, and institutional foundations of Palestinian life, as well as their global impacts. The Centre for Palestine Studies announces the call for papers for its 11th graduate research seminar, to be held on 22nd June 2026 in hybrid format, at SOAS University of London and online. 

This research seminar provides a critical platform for PhD students and postdoctoral scholars working on Palestine or Palestine-related issues to present their projects, receive feedback, and engage others within a supportive environment. We welcome diverse topics that bridge disciplinary divides and expand the current boundaries of Palestine Studies.

Presentations will be grouped by theme and assigned a dedicated peer commentator as well as a discussant. Our goal is to provide a collaborative environment that encourages deep engagement and generative discussion among all participants.

If you are interested in participating, please make a submission via the following form by 1st April 2026. A complete application will include a proposed title, an abstract of a maximum of 200 words, along with a brief bio. In your submission, please specify whether you plan to participate in-person or online. Priority will be given to first-time presenters in this seminar series.

Centre members look forward to receiving your submissions and to our gathering in June.

Original listing on the Centre’s website can be found here.

For questions, please contact the organisers at: soaspalestineseminar@proton.me

The Centre for Palestine Studies at SOAS, University of London was established in 2012 in response to the urgency of the study of Palestine as a major global concern over social injustice, rights, settler colonialism, systems of exclusion and global politics.

APPLY | Ibrahim Abu-Lughod Award in Palestine Studies at CPS

The Center for Palestine Studies at Columbia University invites
applications to the Ibrahim Abu-Lughod Award in Palestine Studies!

The IAL is a nine-month fellowship that recognizes and fosters innovative and ground-breaking scholarship on issues related to Palestine and Palestinians. The award will support a scholar working on a book project in any field of the humanities or social sciences who will spend the academic year at Columbia University in New York, pursuing their research and writing, contributing to curricular matters, and participating in the intellectual life of the Center for Palestine Studies.

The competition is open to all post-doctoral scholars who share the mission of the Center for Palestine Studies to advance the production and circulation of knowledge on Palestinian history, culture, society, and politics through outstanding scholarship. 

Applications are due March 30, 2026.

ATTEND | CUNY Palestine History Colloquium 2026, 03/06/26

ATTEND | What Do They Know? A Portrait of Perpetration and Complicity in the Gaza Genocide w/ Nadia Abu El-Haj, 02/20/26

What Do They Know? A Portrait of Perpetration and Complicity in the Gaza Genocide
Friday, Feb 20, 2026 | 12:30pm - 2:00pm EST | 3700 O St. NW, CCAS Boardroom, ICC 241, Washington, D.C.

There have long been debates about bystanders to genocide and other forms of mass violence. What did they know? How did they just “go along”? If Hannah Arendt famously argued that, in Nazi Germany, there was “nothing but propaganda”, can the same be said with respect to a very different political regime and media environment in contemporary Israel? In this lecture, Nadia Abu El-Haj explores practices of denial, disavowal and impunity that characterize Israeli society amid the genocide in Gaza.

Nadia Abu El-Haj is Ann Whitney Olin Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Barnard College and Columbia University, and Co-Director of the Center for Palestine Studies. She also serves as Vice President and Vice Chair of Board at The Institute for Palestine Studies in Washington, DC. Prof. Abu El-Haj is the recipient of numerous awards, including from the Social Science Research Council, the Wenner Gren Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the Harvard Academy for Area and International Studies, the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, and the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation. Among other publications, she is the author of Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society (University of Chicago Press, 2001), which won the Albert Hourani Annual Book Award from the Middle East Studies Association in 2002; The Genealogical Science: The Search for Jewish Origins and the Politics of Epistemology (University of Chicago Press, 2012); and Combat Trauma: Imaginaries of War and Citizenship in Post-9/11 America (Verso, 2022). She is currently working on a book of essays on the Gaza Genocide.

Fida Adely (moderator) is an Associate Professor at the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and the Clovis and Hala Salaam Maksoud Chair in Arab Studies. She is also currently serving as the Director of the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown.

ATTEND | The Scholar and Feminist: Fifty Years of Meeting the Moment

Feb 27-28, 2026
Scholar and Feminist Conference
Event Oval and Barnard Hall
Barnard College

REGISTRATION HAS REACHED CAPACITY.
Click to join the waitlist. See registration update message at the end of this page.

Featuring: Lila Abu-Lughod, Zahra Ali, Sa’ed Atshan, Elizabeth Bernstein, Abigail Boggs, Judith Butler, Leslie Calman, Tina Campt, Elizabeth Castelli, Edwidge Danticat, Lisa Duggan, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Jack Halberstam, Saidiya Hartman, Janet Jakobsen, Rebecca Jordan-Young, Temma Kaplan, Margot Kotler, Greta LaFleur, Sophie Lewis, Nick Mitchell, Manijeh Moradian, Amber Musser, Premilla Nadasen, Anupama Rao, Catherine Sameh, Evren Savci, C. Riley Snorton, Thenmozhi Soundararajan, Catharine R. Stimpson, Neferti Tadiar, Maya Wind, Jacqueline Woodson, and more.

Friday, February 27, 2026, 10am – 7pm
& Saturday, February 28, 2026, 10am – 6:30pm
See detailed program information below.

For half of a century, The Scholar and Feminist Conference has provided a mutually galvanizing space for scholars, activists, and artists to confront the most pressing issues at any given moment. Defining scholarship as for action from the very beginning, the conference has with unflagging regularity “met the moment” with intersectional feminist knowledge to inspire and build a robust response to contemporary crises. In many ways, the conference has grown up alongside academic feminism itself, yet, rather than uncritically mirror this history, it has consistently pushed back against feminism’s institutionalization. The conference highlights provocations, controversies, foundational gaps, and struggles that both cement its field-forming position and trouble a feminist progress narrative.

The conference’s history of meeting the moment with a vigorous feminist response provides a toolkit for understanding the present. This year, it asks: what are feminist responses to the global rise of authoritarianism and fascism, white Christian nationalism, ethnic cleansing and colonial violence, attacks on higher education and academic freedom, and assaults on queer and trans rights? Which practices of solidarity and feminist arts of transformation can mobilize resistance, provide sustenance, and produce social change? What can we learn from moments in our past, and how do they serve as a springboard for action today?

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 27

All panels are located in the Event Oval in the Diana Center unless otherwise noted.

10:00 am | Welcome by Rebecca Jordan-Young (Director, Barnard Center for Research on Women and Ann Whitney Olin Professor of Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies, Barnard College) and Margot Kotler (Senior Associate Director, Barnard Center for Research on Women)

10:30 am – 12:00 pm | Meeting the Moment: BCRW Directors on Defending Feminist Knowledge

• Leslie Calman (Director, Barnard Center for Research on Women, 1992-1998)

• Elizabeth Castelli (Professor of Religion, Barnard College)

• Janet Jakobsen (Claire Tow Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Barnard College)

• Temma Kaplan (Distinguished Professor Emerita of History, Rutgers)

• Premilla Nadasen (Ann Whitney Olin Professor of History, Barnard College)

• Catharine R. Stimpson (Professor Emerita, NYU)

• Moderated by Rebecca Jordan-Young (Director, Barnard Center for Research on Women and Ann Whitney Olin Professor of Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies, Barnard College)

12:00 pm – 1:20 pm | Lunch

1:20 pm – 1:30 pm | Welcome Remarks by Rebecca Walkowitz, Provost and Dean of the Faculty 

1:30 pm – 3:00 pm | Protectionist Feminism and its Legacies: From the Sex Wars to Carceral Feminism

• Lila Abu-Lughod (Joseph L. Buttenwieser Professor of Social Science, Columbia University)

• Lisa Duggan (Professor Emerita of Social and Cultural Analysis, New York University)

• Greta LaFleur (Associate Professor of American Studies and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Yale University)

• Sophie Lewis (Visiting Scholar, Center for Research in Feminist, Queer and Transgender Studies, University of Pennsylvania)

• Amber Musser (Professor of English, Black, Race, and Ethnic Studies, Africana Studies, The Graduate Center, CUNY)

• Moderated by Elizabeth Bernstein (Professor of Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies and Sociology, Barnard College)

3:15 pm – 4:45 pm | The University in/and Crisis

• Abigail Boggs (Assistant Professor, Sociology, Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and Education Studies, Wesleyan University)

• Nick Mitchell (Associate Professor, Department of Feminist Studies and the Program in Critical Race and Ethnic Studies, UC Santa Cruz)

• Maya Wind (Postdoctoral Fellow, Black Studies, UC Riverside)

• Thenmozhi Soundararajan (Founder, Equity Labs)

• Moderated by Anupama Rao (Professor of History and MESAAS, Barnard College) and C. Riley Snorton (Professor of English and Comparative Literature and ISSG, Columbia University)

4:45 pm – 5:30 pm | Reception (James Room, 4th Floor, Barnard Hall)

5:30 pm – 7:00 pm | Performance: Toshi Reagon and BIG Lovely (Lower Level Theater, Barnard Hall)

————————————————————————————————

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 28

10:00 am | Welcome by Rebecca Jordan-Young (Director, Barnard Center for Research on Women and Ann Whitney Olin Professor of Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies, Barnard College)

10:30 am – 12:00 pm | Transnational Feminist Perspectives on Survival, Solidarity, and Transformation

• Zahra Ali (Associate Professor of Sociology and Anthropology, Rutgers University – Newark)

• Sa’ed Atshan (Associate Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies and Anthropology, Swarthmore College)

• Catherine Sameh (Associate Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies, UC Irvine)

• Evren Savci (Assistant Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Yale University)

• Neferti X. M. Tadiar (Professor of Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies, Barnard College)

• Moderated by Manijeh Moradian (Assistant Professor of Women’s Gender, & Sexuality Studies, Barnard College)

12:00 pm – 1:30 pm | Lunch

1:30 pm – 3:00 pm | How We Write Black Feminism Now

• Tina Campt (Roger S. Berlind ’52 Professor of Humanities, Princeton University)

• Edwidge Danticat (Wun Tsun Tam Mellon Professor of the Humanities in the Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies, Columbia University)

• Saidiya Hartman (University Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Columbia University)

• Jacqueline Woodson (Writer)

• Moderated by Alexis Pauline Gumbs (Poet, independent scholar, and activist)

3:15 pm – 4:45 pm | Keynote: Judith Butler
(Distinguished Professor in the Graduate School, UC Berkeley)

With an introduction by Jack Halberstam (Professor of Gender Studies and English, Columbia University)

5:00 pm – 6:30 pm | Reception (James Room, 4th Floor, Barnard Hall)