Posted on 09/12/2007 1:01:09 AM PDT by Cincinna
A tenure bid by an assistant professor of anthropology at Barnard College who has critically examined the use of archaeology in Israel has put Columbia University once again at the center of a struggle over scholarship on the Middle East.
The professor, Nadia Abu El-Haj, who is of Palestinian descent, has been at Barnard since 2002 and has won many awards and grants, including a Fulbright scholarship and fellowships at Harvard and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J. Barnard has already approved her for tenure, officials said, and forwarded its recommendation to Columbia University, its affiliate, which has the final say.
It is Dr. Abu El-Hajs book, Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society, that has made her a lightning rod, setting off warring petitions opposing and supporting her candidacy, and producing charges of shoddy scholarship and countercharges of an ideological witch hunt.
Judith R. Shapiro, Barnards president, who is also an anthropologist, said in a statement that the tenure process was one of the linchpins of academic freedom and liberal arts education, and that despite the passions, it must be conducted thoughtfully, comprehensively, systematically and confidentially. She added, This case will be no different, both in its rigor and its freedom from outside lobbying.
The fracas is one of a growing list of bitter disputes over the Middle East in academe, including charges a few years ago by Jewish students at Columbia that they were being intimidated by professors of Middle Eastern studies. A university investigation found no evidence of anti-Semitic statements by professors, but it criticized one professor for becoming angry at a student in his class in a discussion of Israels conduct
(Excerpt) Read more at select.nytimes.com ...
ISRAEL AND ARCHAEOLOGY PING LISTS PLEASE COPY.
This professor at Barnard accuses Israeli archaeologists of forging research she claims is used to justify Biblical claims of Jews on “Palestinian” territories.
“Dr. Abu El-Haj says Israeli archaeologists searched for an ancient Jewish presence to help build the case for a Jewish state. In their quest, she writes, they sometimes used bulldozers, destroying remains of other cultures, including those of Arabs.
She concludes her book by saying the ransacking by thousands of Palestinians in 2000 of Josephs tomb, a Jewish holy site in the West Bank, needs to be understood in relation to a colonial-national history of Israel and the symbolic resonance of artifacts.”
You have really hit the nail on the head with those quotes.
They say all anyone needs to know about her.
Here’s more - Barnards Shame
and Columbias Dirty Deal - http://www.nadiaabuelhaj.com/barnardsshame.html
www.DiscoverTheNetwork.org | Date: 9/12/2007 8:28:15 AM |
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NADIA ABU EL-HAJ | |
Nadia Abu El-Haj, an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Barnard College, is listed among the members of the MEALAC (Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures) faculty at Columbia University. A graduate student at Duke University, she turned her doctoral thesis into a book: Facts on the Ground: Archeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society. One admiring reviewer (from the University of Chicago) said the book offers an anthropology of colonialism and nationalism, which follows Foucault and [Edward] Said in which she points to the convergence of archeologys project with that of colonialism. Others have not been so kind. This profile is adapted from an article titled "Crisis at Columbia: Nadia Abu El-Haj," written by Hugh Fitzgerald and published October 10, 2005. Fitzgerald wrote this piece for Campus Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum, which is designed to critique and improve Middle East Studies at North American colleges and universities. It is part of a series of analysis addressing Columbia Universitys Middle East Studies faculty. We invite you to read |
High Volume. Articles on Israel can also be found by clicking on the Topic or Keyword Israel. or WOT [War on Terror]
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Said, Chomsky and Zinn. The pseudointellectual hat-trick of American academe.
So it is your position that Moses, David, and Solomon never lived, and the entire Old Testament was NOTHING but fiction, that there was NEVER a Kingdom of Israel, and that it is perfectly OK to destroy any archaeological evidence that would be contrary to this point of view. In addition you have the idea that 2000 years ago there was a science of archeology, in which people destroyed proof of the existence of other cultures to make an ideological point. I assume the the Holocaust never happened either??
Would it suprise you that the Isreali Jews have been pretty good about preserving Bible archology findings?
The truth is that archaeological digs is a big pastime in Isreal.
And your point is??
I guess Josephus was part of the cospiracy. He forsaw the coming of Islam 600 years in advance and created a phony history of the Jews in Palestine to nip Muhammed in the bud.
Naturally, and the reason you posted it to me was ?
Not only that, the Pharoah who wrote about the Kingdom of David around 900 BC was only doing it to spite the Arabs who would destroy his country and enslave his people 1500 years later!!
What a lie, the Israelis are the most meticulous of archeologists, the only thing they bulldoze is orchards providing cover for Arab terrorists and the homes of Palestinian homicidal bombers. The Israelis know their country has quite an historical past, which includes other ancient tribes. Unlike the Arabs recklessly excavating under Al Asqa, they're not trying to destroy the past, they're trying to make a cohesive whole picture of the regional history.
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