Cultural production opens avenues for new ways of thinking. But how can withdrawal and boycott be productive or conducive to politically oriented artistic practices? This series of seminars poses an alternative view: to consider boycott and withdrawal as special conditions for discourse and artmaking. The seminars address timely questions of the agency of artists in the social and political sphere, and how culture can enact and perform change within a politics of disengagement.

Considering Palestine/Israel

Co-organized with Cabinet magazine, the fourth seminar in the Vera List Center series Assuming Boycott: Resistance, Agency, and Cultural Production, returns to the conflict in Palestine/Israel to look at the impact of the Israeli occupation on institutions and individuals. In formulating strategies of resistance, one must first map the material, cultural, psychological, communicative, and financial structures of oppression. These networks of oppression are constantly moving, adapting to changes in the political, cultural, and economic landscape. The same can be said for the resistance movements that, among other forms, can consist of calls for divestment, petitions, or actual boycotts. Boycotts thus become a sort of performance, enacting new public platforms for civic engagement and disengagement. Institutions of both oppression and resistance are thus modified by boycotts, whose demands and forms are often evolving and shifting. And given the various and sometimes even conflicting calls for boycotts, what is the impact on the individuals who make up and rely on these institutions? How do structures of oppression and resistance impact Israelis and Palestinians engaged in the fight for justice for Palestine? Media theorist, curator, and documentary film maker Ariella Azoulay, philosopher Adi Ophir and curator Jack Persekian present examples of individuals and institutions navigating the shifting landscape of Palestine/Israel, followed by a discussion moderated by anthropologist Ann Stoler.

Participants
Ariella Azoulay, Department of Modern Culture and Media; Department of Comparative Literature, Brown University
Adi Ophir, Professor, The Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas, The Minerva Humanities Center, Tel Aviv University
Visiting Professor, The Cogut Center for the Humanities, and the Middle East Studies Program, Brown University
Jack Persekian, Director and Head Curator, Palestinian Museum, Birzeit, Palestine
Ann Stoler, Willy Brandt Distinguished University Professor of Anthropology and Historical Studies, The New School for Social Research

Cultural production opens avenues for new ways of thinking. But how can withdrawal and boycott be productive or conducive to politically oriented artistic practices? This series of seminars poses an alternative view: to consider boycott and withdrawal as special conditions for discourse and artmaking. The seminars address timely questions of the agency of artists in the social and political sphere, and how culture can enact and perform change within a politics of disengagement.

Considering Palestine/Israel

Co-organized with Cabinet magazine, the fourth seminar in the Vera List Center series Assuming Boycott: Resistance, Agency, and Cultural Production, returns to the conflict in Palestine/Israel to look at the impact of the Israeli occupation on institutions and individuals. In formulating strategies of resistance, one must first map the material, cultural, psychological, communicative, and financial structures of oppression. These networks of oppression are constantly moving, adapting to changes in the political, cultural, and economic landscape. The same can be said for the resistance movements that, among other forms, can consist of calls for divestment, petitions, or actual boycotts. Boycotts thus become a sort of performance, enacting new public platforms for civic engagement and disengagement. Institutions of both oppression and resistance are thus modified by boycotts, whose demands and forms are often evolving and shifting. And given the various and sometimes even conflicting calls for boycotts, what is the impact on the individuals who make up and rely on these institutions? How do structures of oppression and resistance impact Israelis and Palestinians engaged in the fight for justice for Palestine? Media theorist, curator, and documentary film maker Ariella Azoulay, philosopher Adi Ophir and curator Jack Persekian present examples of individuals and institutions navigating the shifting landscape of Palestine/Israel, followed by a discussion moderated by anthropologist Ann Stoler.

Participants
Ariella Azoulay, Department of Modern Culture and Media; Department of Comparative Literature, Brown University
Adi Ophir, Professor, The Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas, The Minerva Humanities Center, Tel Aviv University
Visiting Professor, The Cogut Center for the Humanities, and the Middle East Studies Program, Brown University
Jack Persekian, Director and Head Curator, Palestinian Museum, Birzeit, Palestine
Ann Stoler, Willy Brandt Distinguished University Professor of Anthropology and Historical Studies, The New School for Social Research