Nadia Abu El Haj
Encyclopedia
Nadia Abu El Haj is an American
academic with a PhD
in Anthropology
from Duke University. She is an associate professor of anthropology at Barnard College
.
The author of Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society
(2001), Abu El Haj was the subject of dueling online petitions http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/pubsres/academe/2008/JF/Feat/rabi.htm arguing whether she should be tenure
d during the 2006-07 academic year
when she was recommended for tenure. Barnard granted Abu El Haj the faculty's tenure request in November 2007.
, the second daughter of a "Long Island
Episcopalian" mother, and a Palestinian
Muslim
father. Her maternal grandfather was French
and maternal grandmother, Norwegian
-American, and she has characterized her religious upbringing as "church twice a year."
Abu El Haj spent a couple of years in private schools in Tehran
and Beirut
, while her father was deployed there for the United Nations. She returned to the United States for her university level studies, attending Bryn Mawr College
for her Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science, and going on to receive her doctoral degree from Duke University
. Between 1993 and 1995, she did post-doctoral work on a fellowship from Harvard University
's Academy for International and Area Studies, focusing on the Middle East
. She also received fellowships from the University of Pennsylvania
Mellon Program, and the Institute for Advanced Study
in Princeton
.
Abu El Haj speaks English
, Arabic
, French
, Persian
, and Hebrew.
She has two siblings, Thea Renda Abu El-Haj and Tabatha Abu El-Haj.
from 1997 until 2002, when she joined the faculty at Barnard College. She has also lectured at the New York Academy of Sciences
, New York University
, the University of Pennsylvania, the Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton, the University of Cambridge
, the London School of Economics
(LSE), and the School of Oriental and African Studies
(SOAS) of the University of London
.
A former Fulbright Fellow, Abu El Haj has been a recipient of the SSRC
-McArthur Grant in International Peace and Security, and grants from the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research and the National Endowment for the Humanities
. She is also an Associate Editor of the American Ethnologist: A Journal of the American Ethnological Society and serves on the Editorial Collectives of Public Culture
and Social Text
.
In a 2008 interview with The New Yorker
, she said, "I'm not a public intellectual.... I don't court controversy."
as the subject of her study. Arguing that the facts generated by archaeological practice fashion "cultural understandings, political possibilities and 'common-sense' assumptions", Abu El Haj submits that in the case of Israel
, the practice works to serve the "formation and enactment of its colonial
-national
historical imagination and...the substantiation of its territorial claims".
Facts on the Ground has been reviewed in both scholarly and popular publications. The book was awarded the Middle East Studies Association of North America
2002 Albert Hourani Book Award
which it shared with Gershon Shafir and Yoav Peled's Being Israeli: the Dynamics of Multiple Citizenship.
through the analysis of projects aimed at reconstructing the origins and migrations of specific populations. Analysis is also directed toward the role of for-profit corporations offering genetic ancestry testing. How race, diaspora
, and kinship
intersect, and how genetic origins emerge as a shared concern among those seeking redress or recognition, are predominant themes in the work.
against the professor was started by Paula Stern, a 1982 Barnard alumna who lives in the Israeli settlement
of Ma'aleh Adumim.
In response to Stern's petition, in late August a petition supporting Abu El Haj was initiated by Paul Manning, a linguist in the anthropology department at Trent University
in Peterborough
, Canada
.
By the time Barnard announced that it had granted Abu El Haj tenure, in November 2007, 2,592 people had signed the anti-tenure petition and 2,057 had signed the pro-tenure petition.
reported on support for Abu El Haj among scholars of anthropology and of Middle East
studies. Lisa Wedeen
, Chair of the Political Science
department at the University of Chicago
, said that Facts on the Ground showed that Abu El Haj was more interested in the philosophy of science
than in political argument.
The Chronicle of Higher Education
also wrote that many of Abu El Haj's supporters said that peer review, and not public pressure, is the appropriate measure of a scholar's work, noting that she has been the recipient of many awards, grants, and academic appointments.
An article in The New York Times
in September 2007 reported that many of Abu El Haj's supporters, particularly those in the field of anthropology, praised her book as "solid, even brilliant, and part of an innovative trend". For example, Michael Dietler, a professor of anthropology at the University of Chicago
, described Abu El Haj as a top-quality scholar. Dietler also said Abu El Haj was being opposed because she is of Palestinian descent.
Alan F. Segal
, a professor of religion and Jewish studies at Barnard, questioned the quality of her research. Claiming that Abu El Haj had suggested that "ancient Israelites had not inhabited the land where Israel now stands", Segal said that she either ignored or misunderstood the evidence to the contrary. In a critique of Facts on the Ground published in the Columbia Daily Spectator
, Segal wrote that he opposed Abu El Haj for professional, and not political, reasons. Segal later told The Forward
that Abu El Haj hates Israelis.
William G. Dever
, retired professor of Near East
archaeology at the University of Arizona
, told The New York Sun that Abu El Haj should be denied tenure because her scholarship is "faulty, misleading and dangerous", and not because she is a Palestinian or a leftist
.
Segal and Dever spoke at lectures sponsored by Scholars for Peace in the Middle East
and LionPAC (a pro-Israel advocacy group at Columbia) aimed at rebutting Abu El Haj. In his lecture, Dever disputed the notion that archaeology has inherent biases. However, archaeological theory
challenges this notion. In responding to the controversy surrounding Abu El Haj's work, Barnard President Judith Shapiro
said that showing how archaeological research can be used for political and ideological purposes is a legitimate cultural anthropological enterprise.
Subsequent to the tenure decision, Barnard president Shapiro praised Abu El Haj to an interviewer from the New Yorker
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
academic with a PhD
PHD
PHD may refer to:*Ph.D., a doctorate of philosophy*Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*PHD finger, a protein sequence*PHD Mountain Software, an outdoor clothing and equipment company*PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
in Anthropology
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
from Duke University. She is an associate professor of anthropology at Barnard College
Barnard College
Barnard College is a private women's liberal arts college and a member of the Seven Sisters. Founded in 1889, Barnard has been affiliated with Columbia University since 1900. The campus stretches along Broadway between 116th and 120th Streets in the Morningside Heights neighborhood in the borough...
.
The author of Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society
Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society
Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society is a 2001 book by Nadia Abu El Haj based on her doctoral thesis for Duke University...
(2001), Abu El Haj was the subject of dueling online petitions http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/pubsres/academe/2008/JF/Feat/rabi.htm arguing whether she should be tenure
Tenure
Tenure commonly refers to life tenure in a job and specifically to a senior academic's contractual right not to have his or her position terminated without just cause.-19th century:...
d during the 2006-07 academic year
Academic term
An academic term is a division of an academic year, the time during which a school, college or university holds classes. These divisions may be called terms...
when she was recommended for tenure. Barnard granted Abu El Haj the faculty's tenure request in November 2007.
Early life and education
Abu El Haj was born in New YorkNew York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, the second daughter of a "Long Island
Long Island
Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...
Episcopalian" mother, and a Palestinian
Palestinian people
The Palestinian people, also referred to as Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs , are an Arabic-speaking people with origins in Palestine. Despite various wars and exoduses, roughly one third of the world's Palestinian population continues to reside in the area encompassing the West Bank, the Gaza...
Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
father. Her maternal grandfather was French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and maternal grandmother, Norwegian
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
-American, and she has characterized her religious upbringing as "church twice a year."
Abu El Haj spent a couple of years in private schools in Tehran
Tehran
Tehran , sometimes spelled Teheran, is the capital of Iran and Tehran Province. With an estimated population of 8,429,807; it is also Iran's largest urban area and city, one of the largest cities in Western Asia, and is the world's 19th largest city.In the 20th century, Tehran was subject to...
and Beirut
Beirut
Beirut is the capital and largest city of Lebanon, with a population ranging from 1 million to more than 2 million . Located on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's Mediterranean coastline, it serves as the country's largest and main seaport, and also forms the Beirut Metropolitan...
, while her father was deployed there for the United Nations. She returned to the United States for her university level studies, attending Bryn Mawr College
Bryn Mawr College
Bryn Mawr College is a women's liberal arts college located in Bryn Mawr, a community in Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania, ten miles west of Philadelphia. The name "Bryn Mawr" means "big hill" in Welsh....
for her Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science, and going on to receive her doctoral degree from Duke University
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...
. Between 1993 and 1995, she did post-doctoral work on a fellowship from Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
's Academy for International and Area Studies, focusing on the Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
. She also received fellowships from the University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
Mellon Program, and the Institute for Advanced Study
Institute for Advanced Study
The Institute for Advanced Study, located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States, is an independent postgraduate center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It was founded in 1930 by Abraham Flexner...
in Princeton
Princeton, New Jersey
Princeton is a community located in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. It is best known as the location of Princeton University, which has been sited in the community since 1756...
.
Abu El Haj speaks English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, Persian
Persian language
Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...
, and Hebrew.
She has two siblings, Thea Renda Abu El-Haj and Tabatha Abu El-Haj.
Academic career
Abu El Haj taught at the University of ChicagoUniversity of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
from 1997 until 2002, when she joined the faculty at Barnard College. She has also lectured at the New York Academy of Sciences
New York Academy of Sciences
The New York Academy of Sciences is the third oldest scientific society in the United States. An independent, non-profit organization with more than members in 140 countries, the Academy’s mission is to advance understanding of science and technology...
, New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
, the University of Pennsylvania, the Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton, the University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
, the London School of Economics
London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...
(LSE), and the School of Oriental and African Studies
School of Oriental and African Studies
The School of Oriental and African Studies is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and a constituent college of the University of London...
(SOAS) of the University of London
University of London
-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...
.
A former Fulbright Fellow, Abu El Haj has been a recipient of the SSRC
Social Science Research Council
The Social Science Research Council is a U.S.-based independent nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing research in the social sciences and related disciplines...
-McArthur Grant in International Peace and Security, and grants from the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research and the National Endowment for the Humanities
National Endowment for the Humanities
The National Endowment for the Humanities is an independent federal agency of the United States established by the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965 dedicated to supporting research, education, preservation, and public programs in the humanities. The NEH is located at...
. She is also an Associate Editor of the American Ethnologist: A Journal of the American Ethnological Society and serves on the Editorial Collectives of Public Culture
Public Culture
Public Culture is a reviewed interdisciplinary academic journal of cultural studies, founded in 1988 by anthropologists Carol Breckenridge and Arjun Appadurai...
and Social Text
Social Text
Social Text is an academic journal published by Duke University Press. Since its inception as an independent editorial collective in 1979, Social Text has addressed a wide range of social and cultural phenomena, covering questions of gender, sexuality, race, and the environment...
.
In a 2008 interview with The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
, she said, "I'm not a public intellectual.... I don't court controversy."
Facts on the Ground
In 2001, Abu El Haj published Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society. In it, she uses anthropological methods to explore the relationship between the development of scientific knowledge and the construction of the social imaginations and political orders, using the discipline of Israeli archaeologyArchaeology of Israel
The archaeology of Israel is the study of the archaeology of Israel, stretching from prehistory through three millennia of documented history. The ancient Land of Israel was a geographical bridge between the political and cultural centers of Mesopotamia and Egypt...
as the subject of her study. Arguing that the facts generated by archaeological practice fashion "cultural understandings, political possibilities and 'common-sense' assumptions", Abu El Haj submits that in the case of Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
, the practice works to serve the "formation and enactment of its colonial
Colonialism
Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...
-national
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
historical imagination and...the substantiation of its territorial claims".
Facts on the Ground has been reviewed in both scholarly and popular publications. The book was awarded the Middle East Studies Association of North America
Middle East Studies Association of North America
Middle East Studies Association of North America is a learned society, and according to its website, "a non-political association that fosters the study of the Middle East, promotes high standards of scholarship and teaching, and encourages public understanding of the region and its peoples...
2002 Albert Hourani Book Award
Albert Hourani Book Award
The Albert Hourani Book Award is a non-fiction book award given by the Middle East Studies Association to the year's most notable book in Middle Eastern and Islamic studies. On occasion the award has been shared by two authors. Named after the scholar Albert Hourani, the award was first given in...
which it shared with Gershon Shafir and Yoav Peled's Being Israeli: the Dynamics of Multiple Citizenship.
Other scholarship
Abu El-Haj's more recent scholarship explores the field of genetic anthropologyGenetic anthropology
Genetic anthropology is a new branch of scientific study which deals with combining DNA data with available physical evidence and past histories of civilizations. This would enable scientists to glean through available genetic information that would go a long way in explaining how the modern day...
through the analysis of projects aimed at reconstructing the origins and migrations of specific populations. Analysis is also directed toward the role of for-profit corporations offering genetic ancestry testing. How race, diaspora
Diaspora
A diaspora is "the movement, migration, or scattering of people away from an established or ancestral homeland" or "people dispersed by whatever cause to more than one location", or "people settled far from their ancestral homelands".The word has come to refer to historical mass-dispersions of...
, and kinship
Kinship
Kinship is a relationship between any entities that share a genealogical origin, through either biological, cultural, or historical descent. And descent groups, lineages, etc. are treated in their own subsections....
intersect, and how genetic origins emerge as a shared concern among those seeking redress or recognition, are predominant themes in the work.
Tenure controversy
Abu El-Haj joined the Anthropology Department at Barnard College in the fall of 2002. Because of Barnard College's affiliation with Columbia University, professors recommended for tenure at Barnard are subject to approval by Columbia. Abu El Haj was recommended for tenure by the faculty at Barnard in the 2006-07 academic year, and by Columbia in the 2007-08 academic year.Dueling petitions
On August 7, 2007, an online petitionInternet petition
An Internet petition is a form of petition posted on a website. Visitors to the website in question can add their email addresses or names, and after enough "signatures" have been collected, the resulting letter may be delivered to the subject of the petition, usually via e-mail.-Pros and cons:The...
against the professor was started by Paula Stern, a 1982 Barnard alumna who lives in the Israeli settlement
Israeli settlement
An Israeli settlement is a Jewish civilian community built on land that was captured by Israel from Jordan, Egypt, and Syria during the 1967 Six-Day War and is considered occupied territory by the international community. Such settlements currently exist in the West Bank...
of Ma'aleh Adumim.
In response to Stern's petition, in late August a petition supporting Abu El Haj was initiated by Paul Manning, a linguist in the anthropology department at Trent University
Trent University
Trent University is a liberal arts and science-oriented institution located along the Otonabee River in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada.The enabling legislation is the Trent University Act, 1962-63. The University was founded through the efforts of a citizens' committee interested in creating a...
in Peterborough
Peterborough
Peterborough is a cathedral city and unitary authority area in the East of England, with an estimated population of in June 2007. For ceremonial purposes it is in the county of Cambridgeshire. Situated north of London, the city stands on the River Nene which flows into the North Sea...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
.
By the time Barnard announced that it had granted Abu El Haj tenure, in November 2007, 2,592 people had signed the anti-tenure petition and 2,057 had signed the pro-tenure petition.
Academic debate of Abu El Haj's credentials
In August 2007, The Chronicle of Higher EducationThe Chronicle of Higher Education
The Chronicle of Higher Education is a newspaper and website that presents news, information, and jobs for college and university faculty, staff members and administrators....
reported on support for Abu El Haj among scholars of anthropology and of Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
studies. Lisa Wedeen
Lisa Wedeen
Lisa Wedeen is Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago specializing in comparative politics, the Middle East, political theory, and feminist theory. Wedeen received her Ph.D. in political science at the University of California, Berkeley, where she studied with Hanna Pitkin...
, Chair of the Political Science
Political science
Political Science is a social science discipline concerned with the study of the state, government and politics. Aristotle defined it as the study of the state. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, and the analysis of political systems and political behavior...
department at the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
, said that Facts on the Ground showed that Abu El Haj was more interested in the philosophy of science
Philosophy of science
The philosophy of science is concerned with the assumptions, foundations, methods and implications of science. It is also concerned with the use and merit of science and sometimes overlaps metaphysics and epistemology by exploring whether scientific results are actually a study of truth...
than in political argument.
The Chronicle of Higher Education
The Chronicle of Higher Education
The Chronicle of Higher Education is a newspaper and website that presents news, information, and jobs for college and university faculty, staff members and administrators....
also wrote that many of Abu El Haj's supporters said that peer review, and not public pressure, is the appropriate measure of a scholar's work, noting that she has been the recipient of many awards, grants, and academic appointments.
An article in The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
in September 2007 reported that many of Abu El Haj's supporters, particularly those in the field of anthropology, praised her book as "solid, even brilliant, and part of an innovative trend". For example, Michael Dietler, a professor of anthropology at the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
, described Abu El Haj as a top-quality scholar. Dietler also said Abu El Haj was being opposed because she is of Palestinian descent.
Alan F. Segal
Alan F. Segal
Alan F. Segal was a professor of religion and Ingeborg Rennert Professor of Jewish Studies at Barnard College.Segal was born in Worcester, Massachusetts...
, a professor of religion and Jewish studies at Barnard, questioned the quality of her research. Claiming that Abu El Haj had suggested that "ancient Israelites had not inhabited the land where Israel now stands", Segal said that she either ignored or misunderstood the evidence to the contrary. In a critique of Facts on the Ground published in the Columbia Daily Spectator
Columbia Daily Spectator
Columbia Daily Spectator is the daily student newspaper of Columbia University. It is published at 112th and Broadway in New York, New York. Founded in 1877, it is the oldest continuously operating college news daily in the nation after The Harvard Crimson, and has been legally independent of the...
, Segal wrote that he opposed Abu El Haj for professional, and not political, reasons. Segal later told The Forward
The Forward
The Forward , commonly known as The Jewish Daily Forward, is a Jewish-American newspaper published in New York City. The publication began in 1897 as a Yiddish-language daily issued by dissidents from the Socialist Labor Party of Daniel DeLeon...
that Abu El Haj hates Israelis.
William G. Dever
William G. Dever
William G. Dever is an American archaeologist, specialising in the history of Israel and the Near East in Biblical times. He was Professor of Near Eastern Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Arizona in Tucson from 1975 to 2002...
, retired professor of Near East
Near East
The Near East is a geographical term that covers different countries for geographers, archeologists, and historians, on the one hand, and for political scientists, economists, and journalists, on the other...
archaeology at the University of Arizona
University of Arizona
The University of Arizona is a land-grant and space-grant public institution of higher education and research located in Tucson, Arizona, United States. The University of Arizona was the first university in the state of Arizona, founded in 1885...
, told The New York Sun that Abu El Haj should be denied tenure because her scholarship is "faulty, misleading and dangerous", and not because she is a Palestinian or a leftist
Left-wing politics
In politics, Left, left-wing and leftist generally refer to support for social change to create a more egalitarian society...
.
Segal and Dever spoke at lectures sponsored by Scholars for Peace in the Middle East
Scholars for Peace in the Middle East
Scholars for Peace in the Middle East is an independent non-profit international community network of academic scholars, which according to its founder, conducts "pro-Israel advocacy"...
and LionPAC (a pro-Israel advocacy group at Columbia) aimed at rebutting Abu El Haj. In his lecture, Dever disputed the notion that archaeology has inherent biases. However, archaeological theory
Archaeological theory
Archaeological theory refers to the various intellectual frameworks through which archaeologists interpret archaeological data. There is no one singular theory of archaeology, but many, with different archaeologists believing that information should be interpreted in different ways...
challenges this notion. In responding to the controversy surrounding Abu El Haj's work, Barnard President Judith Shapiro
Judith Shapiro
Judith R. Shapiro is a former President of Barnard College, a liberal arts college for women affiliated with Columbia University; as President of Barnard, she was also an academic dean within the university. She was also a professor of anthropology at Barnard...
said that showing how archaeological research can be used for political and ideological purposes is a legitimate cultural anthropological enterprise.
Tenure decision
On November 2, 2007, Barnard announced that Abu El-Haj had been granted tenure.Subsequent to the tenure decision, Barnard president Shapiro praised Abu El Haj to an interviewer from the New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
.
Published works
- "The Genetic Reinscription of Race" in Annual Review of Anthropology (2007).
- "Rethinking Genetic Genealogy: A Response to Stephan Palmi" in American Ethnologist (2007), 34:2:223-227.http://www.aesonline.org/ae/342abstracts
- "Edward Said and the Political Present" in American Ethnologist (2005), 32:4:538-555.
- "Reflections on Archaeology and Israeli Settler-Nationhood" in Radical History Review (spring 2003), 86:149-163.http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/radical_history_review/v086/86.1el-haj.html
- "Producing (Arti)Facts: Archaeology and Power during the British Mandate of Palestine" in Israel Studies Summer (2002), 7:2:33-61.
- Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli SocietyFacts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli SocietyFacts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society is a 2001 book by Nadia Abu El Haj based on her doctoral thesis for Duke University...
(2001), University of Chicago PressUniversity of Chicago PressThe University of Chicago Press is the largest university press in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including The Chicago Manual of Style, dozens of academic journals, including Critical Inquiry, and a wide array of...
. - "Translating Truths: Nationalism, Archaeological Practice and the Remaking of Past and Present in Contemporary Jerusalem" in American Ethnologist (1998), 25:2:166-188.
External links
- Who Got to Decide on Nadia Abu El-Haj’s Tenure? By Dan Rabinowitz and Ronen Shamir, American Association of University ProfessorsAmerican Association of University ProfessorsThe American Association of University Professors is an organization of professors and other academics in the United States. AAUP membership is about 47,000, with over 500 local campus chapters and 39 state organizations...