The Telos-Paul Piccone Institute’s Israel Initiative
The Telos-Paul Piccone Institute, in cooperation with the journal Telos, announces a series of programs designed to explore the place of critical theory in the response within higher education to the atrocities perpetrated by Hamas on October 7, 2023. Our initiative will take place online, in person, and in print.
Beginning in the immediate political aftermath of the Hamas atrocities, theory has been present—in ways that should give us pause. It was present in sublimated ways, as widespread presuppositions and “narratives,” infused with charismatic authority by a popularized “postcolonial” jargon. It was present in kinetic, emotionally charged, intellectually unsophisticated responses in “mass” demonstrations, public statements by groups and institutions, and individual social media campaigns. Yet above all, it was manifest in considered, open, intentional ways within our universities, as well as among educated elites taught and credentialed within them. The American college campus, the traditional home of critical theory—which emerged in the twentieth century most powerfully as a response to fascism and Nazism—has become a nodal point for the dramatic unfolding of a morally and politically deficient discourse about a present-day Kristallnacht.
What can this state of affairs tell us about American higher education? What does it reveal about the fate of “theory” itself, in concrete, practical, and abstract theoretical terms? How does the ritual deployment of certain theoretical vocabularies in response to the attacks help obscure the interests and power of the New Class of managers, information workers, social engineers, and therapeutic organizers, against which Telos has launched a sustained critique since 1968? What does it signify that many members of this powerful strata have learned to conceive of justice and injustice in terms of reified castes in a hierarchy of victimhood, such that racial, ethnic, national, religious, sexual, or gender identity are largely equated with individual moral culpability or innocence? How have theories critical of symbolic violence turned into justifications for actual violence? And how is this justification of actual violence “by any means necessary” emancipated from any ethical constraints? How do macro-level geopolitical concerns provide a larger context for understanding the place of critical theory in the response to October 7?
To explore these and related issues, the Telos-Paul Piccone Institute presents: (1) a yearlong webinar series, which takes place on the seventh day of each month beginning at noon Eastern Time; (2) a series of podcasts in which past webinar panelists are interviewed in depth about their views; (3) a series of contributions to TelosScope, the blog of Telos Press, as well as our own Substack at Telos Insights; (4) an in-person conference, to take place on November 8–9, 2024, in New York City (Note: This conference has now been canceled and will be convened at a later date and place to be determined); and (5) a special issue of the journal Telos, which will build on the conversations we develop online and in person.
Please join us, and please consider supporting our work by becoming a sponsoring member of TPPI.
To contact Gabriel Noah Brahm, Director of TPPI's Israel Initiative, write to brahm at telosinstitute dot net.
Conference
Click here for more details about the in-person conference. (Note: This conference has now been canceled and will be convened at a later date and place to be determined.)
Webinars
Panel 1
Critical Theory in Light of October 7
With Cary Nelson, Abe Silberstein, and Manuela Connsoni
Moderated by Gabriel Noah Brahm
January 7, 2024
Panel 2
Historians on Ideology and Politics in the 1948 War: October 7 and the Aftershocks of World War II
With Jeffrey Herf, Matthias Küntzel, and Benny Morris
Moderated by Gabriel Noah Brahm
February 7, 2024
Panel 3
Sexual Violence, Feminism, and the Hamas Massacre
With Mariam Memarsadeghi, Batya Ungar-Sargon, and Nina Power
Moderated by Gabriel Noah Brahm
March 7, 2024
Panel 4
How to Teach in a (Culture) War: October 7, Antisemitism, and the Academy
With David Tse-Chien Pan, Olga Kirschbaum-Shirazki, and John M. Ellis
Moderated by Gabriel Noah Brahm
April 7, 2024
Panel 5
Our Troubled Institutions: The End(s) of Higher Education, Post-Journalism, and Antisemitism after October 7
With Russell A. Berman, Gadi Taub, and Paulina Neuding
Moderated by Gabriel Noah Brahm
May 7, 2024
Panel 6
Free Speech and Campus Antisemitism: Academic Freedom, to What End?
With Michael S. Kochin, Geoff Shullenberger, and Jacob Siegel
Moderated by Gabriel Noah Brahm
June 7, 2024
Panel 7
Online Antisemitism after October 7
With Matthias J. Becker and Günther Jikeli
Moderated by Gabriel Noah Brahm
July 7, 2024
Panel 8
On the Anniversary of October 7: A Conversation with Eva Illouz
With Eva Illouz and Elli Stern
Moderated by Gabriel Noah Brahm
October 7, 2024
Podcasts
The TPPI Podcast, Episode 1
“A Range of Theories Engaged with and Challenging Each Other”: A Conversation with Cary Nelson
January 27, 2024
The TPPI Podcast, Episode 2
Frantz Fanon and October 7: A Conversation with Abe Silberstein
February 12, 2024
The TPPI Podcast, Episode 4
The Nazi Roots of October 7: A Conversation with Dr. Matthias Küntzel and Gabriel Noah Brahm
May 29, 2024
The TPPI Podcast, Episode 5
Israel's Year of Dangerous Living: From Judicial Reform to October 7 and Beyond: A Conversation with Gadi Taub and Gabriel Noah Brahm
June 30, 2024
The TPPI Podcast, Episode 6
Israel's Year of Dangerous Living, Part 2: From the Battlefield of Ideas to the Battlefield, and Back: A Conversation with Dr. Jonathan Spyer and Gabriel Noah Brahm
July 12, 2024
The TPPI Podcast, Episode 7
Israel's Year of Dangerous Living, Part 3: On Ballots and Bullets: A Conversation with Prof. Michael S. Kochin and Gabriel Noah Brahm
July 15, 2024
The TPPI Podcast, Episode 8
Israel's Year of Dangerous Living, Part 4: A View from Israel's Center Left: A Conversation with Paul Gross and Gabriel Noah Brahm
July 19, 2024
The TPPI Podcast, Episode 9
Israel's Year of Dangerous Living, Part 5: Conceptions and Consequences: A Conversation with Orian Morris and Gabriel Noah Brahm
July 20, 2024
Commentaries
Israel, Hamas, and Moral Asymmetry
by David Pan
November 7, 2023
The Hamas Massacre Would Have Been Unthinkable without Influences from Nazi Germany: Interview with Martin Cüppers
by Bernhard Junginger
December 18, 2023
Anti-Zionism and Antisemitism: A Note on Cüppers
by Russell A. Berman
December 18, 2023
Critical Theory as Anti-Emancipatory Project
by Collin May
January 15, 2024
Bibliophobia: The Cancelation of Collin May, an Interview
by Gabriel Noah Brahm
January 19, 2024
Killing Jews and Critical Theory
by Casey Spinks
January 31, 2024
Rounding Up the Bicyclists; Or, Can the Subaltern Please Stop Speaking? A Preface to Spinks
by Gabriel Noah Brahm
January 31, 2024
The University after October 7
by Michael Saenger
February 2, 2024
A Tour of the Aftermath of Israel's Black Sabbath
by Gabriel Mayer-Heft
February 12, 2024
The End of the Academy as We Knew It
by Andrew Pessin
April 22, 2024
From Palestine Avenue to Morningside Heights, the Crisis of the U.S. Academy after October 7: Announcing a New Series of Critical Takes on Higher Education and the Middle East Conflict
by Gabriel Noah Brahm
April 23, 2024
The Proper Limits of Academic Freedom: Lessons from the Unrest at Columbia University
by David Pan
April 24, 2024
The Columbia University Encampment, Joseph Massad, and the Future of Campus Antisemitism
by Cary Nelson
April 26, 2024
Palestine Avenue
by Andrei S. Markovits
April 29, 2024
Postcolonial Activism: An Infantile Disorder
by Julius Bielek
April 30, 2024
The Jewish Body and the Trans Community after October 7: A Tale of Misidentification
by Corinne E. Blackmer
May 8, 2024
Higher Education after October 7: Drain the Swamp
by Russell A. Berman
May 9, 2024
Open Letter to the American Association of University Professors
by Corinne E. Blackmer
May 10, 2024
In Our Name: A Message from Jewish Students at Columbia University
by Eliana Goldin, Elisha Baker, Rivka Yellin, and Eden Yadegar
May 11, 2024
Stand Columbia
by Michael S. Kochin
May 13, 2024
Why Palestinian Violence Fails
by Alex Stein
May 15, 2024
The Return of the Two Cultures in the Israel–Hamas War Protests
by Peter C. Herman
May 17, 2024
Overcoming Antisemitism by Reinvigorating Twentieth‑Century Liberalism
by Gerald Berk
May 30, 2024
What Is Islamo-Leftism? Its Origins and Current Developments
by Pierre-André Taguieff
July 12, 2024
The Left and Islamism: Antisemitism and Antikurdism
by Peshraw Mohammed
August 21, 2024
Firewall with Fire Accelerants? Two Austrian Scandals, Fall 2024
by Arno Tausch
October 24, 2024
The Israeli Political Moment, Part 1: Why “Left vs. Right” No Longer Makes Sense
by Paul Gross
October 25, 2024
Thanks and Acknowledgments
For their support of the Telos-Paul Piccone Institute’s Israel Initiative, we wish to thank the families of Nancy and Paul Oberman and Lynn and Rabbi Samuel Stahl, who continue the commitments of Lois and Willard Cohodas in support of Holocaust education. Lois and Willard Cohodas dedicated their lives to enhancing respect for humans of all faiths and beliefs, while creating space for understanding and acceptance of the differences and similarities inherent among peoples.
For his essential institutional support, we wish to thank Dr. Robert J. Winn, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, Northern Michigan University.
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