Queering Anti-Zionism

Academic Freedom, LGBTQ Intellectuals, and Israel/Palestine Campus Activism

Author: Corinne E. Blackmer

A queer critique of anti-Zionism, exploring how the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement has undermined scholarly inquiry.

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Summary

A queer critique of anti-Zionism, exploring how the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement has undermined scholarly inquiry.

Description

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.

Critic Reviews

“Queering Anti-Zionism is an important corrective to the Manichaean view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that has overtaken queer academia. Corinne Blackmer challenges point-by-point the oversimplifications, false equivalencies, and misrepresentations presented by leading queer critics of Zionism; she offers in their place a balanced and informed understanding of the complexities of the conflict. This is a brave and very necessary book.--Lillian Faderman "author of Naked in the Promised Land, My Mother's Wars, and Woman: The American History of an Idea"”

Queering Anti-Zionism embodies engaged scholarship at its best. Blackmer displays her unique talents and commitments as a pro-Zionist Queer scholar-activist to provide an informed analysis and critique of how key queer anti-Zionist commentators have engaged in anti-Israel propaganda and rhetoric. This is a book of exceptional integrity and accomplishment.

--David Ellenson

About the Author

Corinne E. Blackmer is professor of English and Judaic Studies at Southern Connecticut State University. She has authored numerous articles on Jewish Studies, Women's Modernism, LGBTQ/Queer Studies, the Hebrew Bible, and American Literature. She has also co-edited two volumes: En Travesti: Women, Gender Subversion, Opera and Poisoning the Wells: Antisemitism in Contemporary America.