SAPIR Conversations

Author: SAPIR: Ideas for a Thriving Jewish Future

SAPIR is a journal exploring the future of the American Jewish community and its intersection with cultural, social, and political issues. These podcasts are recordings of Zoom webinars we have held with our contributors (season numbers correspond with issue numbers). To find out more and join our next events live, visit www.sapirjournal.org.
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S15E3: “Academia’s Palestine Exception” with Shaul Kelner
Episode 2
Tuesday, 7 January, 2025

Critical theory – the study of the ways “oppression gets produced and reproduced within and across societies” – is the dominant method of inquiry in many areas of higher education, especially in the humanities and social sciences. Yet many scholars resist applying it honestly to the study of the Jewish people and Zionism. Were they to do so, argues Vanderbilt professor Shaul Kelner, they might find they had entirely misunderstood these categories and the place of Jews in the oppressor/oppressed dynamic. On Tuesday, January 7, Professor Kelner joined SAPIR Associate Editor Felicia Herman to unpack his essay, “Turning Critical Theory on Its Head,” and discuss whether and how this might be changed.