Scholasticide in Gaza

& Reverberations on US Campuses

Speakers
Amal Amireh
Timothy Gibson
Holly Mason Badra
Jena
Bassam Haddad 

Moderator
Marwa Bakabas

Tuesday, 30 April 2024
2:00 PM EST

JC Room A, Fairfax, VA
George Mason University (GMU ID Required) 

Israel has destroyed every single University in Gaza, in addition to damaging most schools, amounting to a  clear case of Scholasticide. The implications are calamitous for Palestinians in Gaza. The unwavering support for Israel by the United States has spurred both a campaign of intimidation/suspension of dissenting faculty  and a ubiquitous campaign of protests & encampments throughout U.S. Universities, led by students, and smeared by detractors. Join our faculty and students to address these grave developments amid an ongoing genocidal campaign in Gaza.

Featuring

Amal Amireh is an Associate Professor of English at George Mason University where she teaches postcolonial and Middle Eastern Literatures. She was born and raised in the city of Elbrieh in the occupied West Bank, Palestine. Amal graduated from Birzeit University and Boston University. Before coming to GMU, she taught at two major Palestinian universities, Al Najah National University in Nablus and at Birzeit University. Amal’s work focuses on representations of Palestinian and Arab women in the western discourse, on settler colonialism, nationalism, gender and sexuality in Palestinian and Arab literature. 

Tim Gibson is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at George Mason University, where his research interests include critical media studies, the political economy of communication, and urban studies. He is an active member of Mason's chapter of the American Association of University Professors (GMU-AAUP) and currently serves as chapter President. Together with other AAUP members, he has campaigned for donor transparency, faculty and student participation in university governance, job security and reduced workloads for contingent faculty, and for fair treatment of Mason's contract workers. 

Holly Mason Badra (she/her) is a queer, Kurdish-American poet and is the associate director of Women and Gender Studies at George Mason University. She has a BA in English (UNC-Greensboro), an MFA in Poetry (GMU), and a Graduate Certificate in Higher Education (GMU). Her work is published in various journals online and in print. Her most recent project focuses on highlighting women and non-binary Kurdish writers. The thing she cares about most (other than her wife and baby) is building community.  

Jena is a student at George Mason University and the President of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) on campus.

Bassam Haddad is Director of the Middle East and Islamic Studies Program and Associate Professor at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. He is the author of Business Networks in Syria: The Political Economy of Authoritarian Resilience (Stanford University Press, 2011) and co-editor of A Critical Political Economy of the Middle East (Stanford University Press, 2021). Bassam is Co-Founder/Editor of Jadaliyya Ezine and Executive Director of the Arab Studies Institute. He serves as Founding Editor of the Arab Studies Journal and the Knowledge Production Project. He is co-producer/director of the award-winning documentary film, About Baghdad, and director of the acclaimed series Arabs and Terrorism. Bassam is Executive Producer of Status Podcast Channel and Director of the Middle East Studies Pedagogy Initiative (MESPI). He received MESA's Jere L. Bacharach Service Award in 2017 for his service to the profession. Currently, Bassam is working on his second Syria book titled Understanding The Syrian Tragedy: Regime, Opposition, Outsiders (forthcoming, Stanford University Press).

Marwa Bakabas is an adjunct professor at GMU in the SOAN department and has taught courses on refugees and Global Migration and Experiences of Displacement within the Migration Policy and Advocacy Fellowship. She was also a research fellow with Ludwig Maximilians Universität Munich titled “Violence, Trauma and Exile: in the Arab World and Germany.” Marwa’s advocacy extends to raising awareness through storytelling about displacement experiences and promoting social justice and human rights. Since 2021, she has facilitated an American-Yemeni student exchange program, producing the podcast “Qisasna” through Steven’s Initiative, fostering collaboration between students in Yemen and the U.S. Additionally,she is a founding member of Citizens for Just Policy. Marwa, a Yemeni American, holds dual graduate degrees in cultural anthropology, specializing in war, displacement, and humanitarianism.