Non­fic­tion

Queer­ing Anti-Zion­ism: Aca­d­e­m­ic Free­dom, LGBTQ Intel­lec­tu­als, and Israel/​Palestine Cam­pus Activism

Corinne E. Blackmer
January 4, 2022

With engaged schol­ar­ship and an excit­ing con­tri­bu­tion to the field of Israel/​Palestine stud­ies, queer schol­ar-activist Corinne Black­mer stages a point­ed cri­tique of schol­ars whose anti-Israel bias per­vades their activism as well as their aca­d­e­m­ic work. Black­mer demon­strates how the Boy­cott, Divest­ment, and Sanc­tions (BDS) move­ment that seeks to dele­git­imize and iso­late Israel has become a cen­tral part of social jus­tice advo­ca­cy on cam­pus, par­tic­u­lar­ly with­in gen­der and sex­u­al­i­ty stud­ies pro­grams. The chap­ters focus on the intel­lec­tu­al work of Sarah Schul­man, Jas­bir Puar, Angela Davis, Dean Spade, and Judith But­ler, demon­strat­ing how they mis­ap­ply crit­i­cal the­o­ry in their dis­cus­sions of the State of Israel. Black­mer shows how these LGBTQ intel­lec­tu­als mobi­lize queer the­o­ry and inter­sec­tion­al­i­ty to sup­port the BDS move­ment at the expense of aca­d­e­m­ic free­dom and open discourse.

iden­ti­ty
edu­ca­tion
activism
lgbtq

Discussion Questions

In Queer­ing Anti-Zion­ism, Corinne Black­mer address­es the ide­olo­gies and pro­pa­gan­da of aca­d­e­mics at the inter­sec­tions of crit­i­cal stud­ies, queer dis­course, and Israel stud­ies. In this cre­ative and aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly rich work, Dr. Black­mer offers mul­ti­ple respons­es to the ways in which the BDS move­ment is mis­rep­re­sent­ing itself by pro­vid­ing spe­cif­ic answers to each of a select few thinkers who have become promi­nent in post-mod­ern thought. 

This book offers the field of Jew­ish high­er edu­ca­tion and the area of Jew­ish queer iden­ti­ty the sup­port to respond to what have become mount­ing attacks and sug­gests lan­guage, fram­ings, and nar­ra­tive cas­es to bridge the grow­ing acri­mo­ny with dia­logue and engage­ment that is ground­ed in the real­i­ty of the lived expe­ri­ences of LGBTQ Israelis. Where so many seek to sim­pli­fy and vil­i­fy, Queer­ing Anti-Zion­ism man­dates rich nuance and intel­lec­tu­al rig­or on what is both a per­son­al and human rights conversation.