Over the past two weeks, Egypt has erupted in mass protests. The Committee on Global Thought hosted a panel of academic all-stars to dissect the revolutionary frenzy. Daily Editor Sameea Butt recaps “Egypt Arising” below! And if you don’t feel like reading, you watch the full lecture online.

The last several weeks have been witness to a revolution in the making, starting from protests in Tunisia to Mubarak’s resignation from his thirty-year term Friday morning. While this is sure to be a case study in history and political science for years to come, a panel met Thursday night, on the eve of the Egyptian movement’s success, to try to make sense of the recent events in the Arab world.

The lecture totally overwhelmed by popular demand—even after the doors had closed, crowds struggled to make their way through the front doors. Moderator and Columbia Sociology prof, Saskia Sassen, apologetically acknowledged the stragglers in her opening remarks as “our own protesters,” only half-jokingly noting the pattern of breakdown in regimes like Mubarak’s: “Unarmed people can contest military power. It illuminates possibilities and tells us about the conditions for change.” Over the next two hours, panelists Juan Cole, Mona El Ghobasy, Jean-Pierre Filiu and Rashid Khalidi tackled Egypt’s thorny past and uncharted future. Read more…

Today, a group of faculty members sent a letter with 120 professor signatures regarding PrezBo’s “silence regarding academic freedom in Palestine.” While the last Israel/Palestine student rally may not have exactly been of 1968-proportions (ah, but what is these days), the faculty list has many well-known professors, including Lila Abu-Lughod, Gil Anidjar, Richard Bulliet, Yinon Cohen, Victoria de Grazia, Rashid Khalidi, Philip Kitcher, Mark Mazower, Bruce Robbins, Gayatri Spivak, and Michael Taussig. 

Several campus groups, including Students for a Democratic Society, have also been forwarding the email to several political and activist groups on campus with the hope that they can accumulate a “sizable list of student signatures” to add to their 107-person-and-growing Student, Alumni and Community Support list. The student list will not, however, be presented to Bollinger.

The full letter and faculty list can be found after the jump. UPDATE: Our post originally reported that the letter had been made public by SDS. In fact, according to SDS members, the letter was created by “faculty have passed it on to students, who have forwarded it around.” (Photo by LPM) Read more…

As you may have heard, there’s a bit of a to-do in Gaza right now. Being an utterly uncontroversial source for Israel-Palestine conflict analysis, Columbia hasn’t been able to keep its name out of the media, with several professors offering their thoughts on the latest clash. Some samples:

• Just before the start of the conflict, Yinon Cohen co-authored an editorial advocating for a new push on the two-state solution.
• Joseph Massad, in Gulf News (an English-language daily published in Dubai) “The lesson that Zionism has refused to learn, and still refuses to learn, is that the Palestinian yearning for freedom from the Zionist yoke cannot be extinguished no matter how barbaric Israel’s crimes become.”
• Massad also compared Gaza in 2009 to the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
• Old McCain-Palin target Rashid Khalidi has been busy as well: telling everyone in today’s Times “What You Don’t Know About Gaza,” and declaring the failure of the Israeli assault in Newsday and on NPR
• And finally, GS Dean and Middle East Institute director Peter Awn talked to the Wall Street Journal about “What Could Happen to Gaza After War?“

Bwog of course takes no position on the conflict, but, given that students held a vigil for Gaza when there wasn’t a full scale invasion going on, we suspect it might become a flashpoint when school resumes. Call it a hunch. (Photo by the Associated Press)

Bwog’s taking it easy this weekend, and so is the rest of the world.  This week’s roundup, minus most references to Rashid Khalidi.

Also, today is Mess With Daylight Time, so don’t forget to turn your clocks back!

Nobel prize-winner Chalfie jumps on board and supports Obama.

The New York Times finally covers Khalidi goes meta and covers the coverage about Khalidi.

CU’s new Director of Historic Preservation joins the Lit majors and minces words.

Random blog joins conspiracy theorists: Obama never went to Columbia.

Bacteria in group therapy admit it: they’re total followers.

A fair number of you politically inclined tipsters have sent us the CNN story about Palin’s mention of Rashid Khalidi’s relationship with Obama. (Good to know you aren’t harboring a grudge against CNN!)

Anyway, Palin characterized MEALAC Professor Khalidi — whom she noted was a “political ally” of Obama’s — as a “former spokesperson for the Palestinian Liberation Organization” — a claim refuted by both Barack Obama and Khalidi himself. 

Palin denies that this is negative campaigning, claiming that it “is not negative campaigning to call someone out on their record.”

McCain and Co. have also recently demanded that the Los Angeles Times release a videotape of Khalidi’s going-away party at the University of Chicago, a party Obama attended and allegedly featured a woman reading a poem that was critical of the Israel-US relationship.

Read more…

In response to the recent increased frequency with which McCain has been criticizing Obama’s friendship with Weather Underground co-founder and TC ’87 Bill Ayers, over 1600 professors and academics have signed a statement of support for Ayers.

“It seems that the character assassination and slander of Bill Ayers and other people who have known Obama is not about to let up. While an important concern is the dishonesty of this campaign and the slanderous McCarthyism they are using to attack Obama, we also feel an obligation to support our friend and colleague Bill Ayers,” states the petition. 

Columbia professors who signed include Rashid Khalidi (he of his own troubles with the McCain campaign), John Coatsworth, Mahmood Mamdani, light of Bwog’s loins Bruce Robbins, Gil Anidjar, Neni Panourgia, Paul Strohm, Mona Khalidi, Kenneth Frampton, Maxine Greene (who signed twice, actually), Thai Jones (son of Weather Underground cofounder Jeff Jones and current CU Ph.D. candidate), Victoria de Grazia, Saskia Sassen and others. And that’s just the first sheet.

And speaking of Obama, the National Review‘s blog the Corner has a theory about why Obama tends to avoiding mentioned your University. (Hint: this too has to do with Bill Ayers.)

Read more…

Over the past few days, the presidential campaign has become even more negative.  Now, hot on the heels of the Senator Barack Obama campaign’s announcement that they would play up Senator John McCain’s part in the Keating Five, Marc Ambinder of The Atlantic reports that McCain’s campaign has a new target: Columbia professor Rashid Khalidi.

For several years, Khalidi has been a controversial figure both at Columbia and in New York City for his views on the Israeli-Palestine conflict. Before coming to Columbia in 2004, Khalidi knew Obama during the latter’s years in local Chicago government, which overlapped with Khalidi’s time the University of Chicago. Khalidi and his wife held a fundraiser for Obama in 2000, and Obama spoke at a goodbye party for Khalidi in 2003.  The relationship has already drawn enough questions on the internet to merit several citations in Khalidi’s Wikipedia article, but this is the first time that the McCain campaign plans to mention it.

As for the substance of the attack, Ambinder writes that the McCain campaign will try to paint Khalidi as a former Palestine Liberation Organization spokesperson, a charge that has been made several times before, with little evidence to back it up. Khalidi denies ever having been a spokesperson, though he was an advisor at the Madrid Conference of 1991.

Oriflammes are gleaming! The rabble is roused! T-shirts are free for the taking! Five Years of War, Five Days of Action has reached its apex out on Low Plaza. A devoted cadre of protesters walked out of class at noon. Though the crowd has dwindled, there’s no reason to think any of the 236 people who confirmed their attendance via Facebook flaked out. Since then, they’ve encircled the sundial, which has been recomissioned as a podium. The professors invited (Hamid Dabashi, Rashid Khalidi, Zainab Bahrani, and Bruce Robbins) wrapped up their speeches earlier. Three veterans (one a Columbia grad student) have told their war stories. But as the speeches end, hijinks await. The group has promised protestacular mischief at 2 o’clock. An anonymous tipster informs Bwog that Butler, Alma Mater, a banner, and some unfurling may be involved. Stay tuned for live(ish) updates.

Update, 1:52 pm: Much of the crowd is now sitting. One speaker, a postdoc student, asked the crowd whether it wanted to engage in any chants–response was unenthusiastic. Bwog is stroking sweat away from its brow, and regretting having bought a black, heat-absorbing laptop. Talk has turned to divesting Columbia from business with Iraq war contractors (some $5M invested!), and to demanding that Columbia introduce scholarships for Iraqi students. This has raised audience engagement to a low whooping level.

Update, 2:14 pm: The event reached a monumental finale when a banner was flung from Butler (Bwog was mighty impressed) and Alma Mater was veiled and surrounded by a militant bunch of arm-linkers. Bwog remains a bit confused about why the banner looks like a pink dress, and about why the veil looks like it was made of some sort of do-rag material. Sunbathers seemed befuddled but engaged. The clanging of the bell has recommenced.

Photos after the jump

Read more…

It’s academia’s equivalent to The 50 Most Beautiful People. And it’s put out by that most discerning of polemicists, David Horowitz. With all the appropriate pageantry, he presents us withThe 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America. Danger is sexy! And guess what? Columbia is the sexiest! Nine of the Dr. Dangers teach at Columbia. Eric Foner, Todd Gitlin, Rashid Khalidi, and Joseph Massad are among the elite bunch. Sorry ladies, most of them are already taken.

“I was flattered to be included, despite the inaccuracies and false innuendos, although I didn’t and don’t feel I have earned the right (either as a professor or a clear and present danger) to be on such a list,” a Columbia journalism professor who is the editor of the Nation and chairman of the Columbia Journalism Review, Victor Navasky, told the NY Sun in an e-mail message.