Confronting Authoritarianism, Defending Equality Lecture Series
To address the challenges of our times, Rutgers University’s Center for Security, Race, and Rights (CSRR) is hosting 2 lecture series and publishing a groundbreaking policy report Punished for Participating: Islamophobia in U.S. Electoral Politics. This forthcoming report examines the experiences of Muslim American political candidates and elected officials as they encounter overt hostility and attempts to exclude Muslim-American communities from public service. That is, Muslims are punished for participating in one of the most American acts—running for office in democratic elections.
The experts featured in this year’s annual lecture series, Confronting Authoritarianism, Defending Equality, examine the legal, social, and political factors contributing toward an increase in explicit Islamophobia in U.S. electoral politics, the continued impact of the “Global War on Terror”, gendered Islamophobia in Western feminist movements, and the paradox of a revered Constitution as a redemptive guide while it fails to prevent imperialism abroad and systemic racism at home.
We are proud to host the third annual Humanizing Palestine lecture series featuring Palestinian scholars deliver book talks based on their extensive research of the experiences, history, and politics of Palestine. We begin the series with Dr. Munther Isaac providing the experiences of Palestinian Christians living under Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza. Dr. Areej Sabbagh-Khoury will present her ground-breaking research on the role of the Zionist leftist movement in the making of the Palestinian Nakba. Mouin Rabbani offers a sobering accounting of an apocalyptic reality of 2 million Palestinians in Gaza left without homes, schools, and work due to the Israeli military’s genocidal campaign. We conclude the Humanizing Palestine lecture series with Dr. Salman Abu Sitta who offers a moving memoir of the devastating impact of the Nakba on generations of Palestinians. If you missed the first and/or second annual lecture series, you can subscribe and watch them on CSRR’s Youtube channel.
Here are links to each of the lectures in this series: