The Executive Committee of AAUP-Harvard Faculty Chapter condemns the abrupt termination of the leadership of Harvard’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies (CMES): Professor Cemal Kafadar as Director and Associate Professor Rosie Bsheer as Associate Director. Though both Kafadar and Bsheer will retain their regular faculty positions, this summary dismissal of two leading Middle East scholars from their administrative positions is a political infringement on academic freedom and the autonomy of professors to shape intellectual agendas in their areas of research, teaching, and programming expertise.

Join our first session of “Teaching Palestine Today” series. This session addresses the “Liberal Arts Context,” with Lara Deeb, Heather Ferguson, Amanda Lagji, and Leila Mansouri, moderated by Bassam Haddad. Four faculty members at the Claremont Colleges, a liberal arts consortium, discuss their approaches to including material on Palestine and Palestinian perspectives into classes in anthropology, history, postcolonial and decolonial literature, and creative writing. Topics addressed include classroom approaches, syllabi scaffolding, and strategies for building support beyond the classroom.