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biopolitics, task for session #9: references to the right to maim

Pre-Session Task for Monday, December 11.

Topic: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Jasbir Puar’s “The Right to Maim”

Objective:

To enrich our discussion and deepen our understanding of Puar’s arguments in “The Right to Maim,” you are asked to bring an interdisciplinary theory, framework, or concept to class that can either contrast with, complement, or provide a fresh perspective on Puar’s ideas.

Instructions:

  1. Select a Framework/Theory/Concept:
    • Choose a theoretical framework, concept, or perspective from a discipline outside of Puar’s primary field. This could be from sociology, psychology, law, political science, history, gender studies, etc.
    • Ensure that your choice is relevant to the themes explored in the first three chapters of “The Right to Maim”; you can get inspired from the podcast episode on “The Right to Maim”with Bassam Sidiki. If you need a refresher, the podcast can be accessed here.
  2. Prepare a Short Presentation:
    • Prepare a brief (2–3 minutes) presentation (no slides needed) or discussion points on how your chosen framework contrasts with, complements, or adds a new dimension to Puar’s arguments. You may also already publish them in the blog here.
    • Consider questions like:
      • How does this framework challenge or support Puar’s views on state violence, debility, and capacity?
      • What new insights or perspectives does it bring to the themes discussed in the book?
      • Are there any points of contention or significant alignments between the two?
  3. Be Ready to Discuss:
    • Come prepared to share your findings and insights with the class.
    • Engage critically and constructively with your peers’ presentations, exploring how these diverse perspectives enhance our collective understanding of Puar’s work.

In preparation of 11.12.: Listen to the podcast episode on “The Right to Maim”with Bassam Sidiki on https://newbooksnetwork.com/the-right-to-maim and comment on it in the blog.

writing seminar, the 10 (+1) key insights on how to write with value for readers

Understanding the Function of Academic Writing: Academic writing primarily aims to help readers understand something they are interested in, more profoundly​. It’s essential to recognize that this understanding process in readers may differ significantly from the writer’s understanding process.

  1. Identifying Specific Readers: The value of academic writing is assessed by specific readers, not a generic audience. Understanding the particulars of the target audience is crucial for effective writing​.
  2. Emphasizing Understanding Over Persuasion: The core function of academic writing is to enhance understanding, differing from other forms of writing like politics or business, which often aim to persuade​.
  3. Writing About What Readers Want to Know: Academic writers must align their writing with what their readers want to understand. The success of academic texts largely depends on this alignment​.
  4. Criteria for Better Understanding: The concept of understanding ‘better’ varies across disciplines, and it’s the readers who decide what counts as a better understanding, not the writers​.
  5. Constructing the Problem: To effectively make readers understand better, academic texts need to illustrate the inadequacy in the readers’ current understanding. This involves constructing a problem that the text will solve​.
  6. Motivating Readers with Value: A text’s value lies in addressing a problem that the readers care about. This involves identifying an instability, its consequences, and connecting these with the interests of the reader community​.
  7. Instability and Its Perception: It’s crucial to establish why an instability matters to the readers and persuade them that resolving this instability has benefits​​. Sometimes, it may be necessary to construct an instability by destabilizing something the readers believe to be stable​.
  8. Gap vs. Error Problems: Writers often try to construct a problem by identifying a gap in knowledge or an error in current understanding. Choosing between these approaches depends on which type of problem the writer can more effectively argue for and which resonates more with the readers​.
  9. The Writing vs. Reading Process: The process of writing and the process of reading can be quite different. Writers should be careful not to assume their understanding translates directly to the readers. Feedback from others can be valuable in identifying gaps in problem construction​.
  10. Problems in the World vs. Problems in the Readers: Writers need to distinguish between describing instabilities in the world and those in the readers’ understanding. The aim should be to address the readers’ problem of understanding, not to resolve the world’s instabilities.

writing seminar, list of confirmed topics for the final paper

I want to share this diverse compilation of research topics suggested by students because I feel it exemplifies the interdisciplinary ethos of our Interdisciplinary Studies of the Middle East master’s program.

Rather than siloed concentrations, the program emphasizes cross-pollination of subjects, theories and methods to promote more nuanced understandings. The range displayed here – spanning politics, culture, language, social practices, urban studies and more – thus aligns with our commitment to intersectional scholarship.

Additionally, I hope this list inspires current and prospective students with possibilities for investigation. The Middle East is often narrowly construed along tired binaries and assumptions in mainstream discourse. But as these topics highlight, so many illuminating facets of societies in this region and of its people beyond the region remain underexplored through fresh, unconventional approaches.

As our existing cohort develops their work, the students themselves feature their progress through comments in this blog. The diverse research interests they’re pursuing signify not only the multiplicity of avenues worth studying, but also the program’s role in cultivating agile analytical minds.

Politics, Social Movements, and Conflict

  • framing the Middle East : an analysis of the U.S. media coverage of the Second Intifada
  • Gezi protests through an anarchist perspective
  • reactions to the Israel-Hamas conflict in Iranian non-governmental social media
  • the diplomatic rehabilitation of Bashar Al-Assad
  • Abdulhamid II: mighty sultan or a despot?
  • narallel Narratives: exploring political incapacity and colonial occupation in Palestine and Georgia
  • the reception of Gezi events by the witnesses
  • the transnational networks of the Gülen movement as a manifestation of Islamic revivalism abroad

Identity, Representation, and Social Justice

  • construction of the “Other” in parliament speeches of Turkish political parties
  • now we can walk with our heads held high: honor crimes in the Middle East
  • Hebrewism over Judaism: examining Canaanism through the poetry and politics of Yonatan Ratosh
  • on Feminist counter-violence: to kill for liberation under patriarchal state/justice: evidences from Turkey between 2010 and 2023

Migration and Mobility

  • analyzing the impacts of Middle Eastern immigration to Germany by the agency of the immigrants: cultural and socio-psychological experiences of immigrants, focus on Berlin and Turkey
  • migration of Yemenis to Germany
  • Ismailia to Berlin: an autoethnography
  • Stereotyping of Turkish Immigrants and Cultural clashes between early and new generations of Turkish immigrants to Germany

Urban Studies, Public Space, and Social and Cultural Practices

  • stray animals of Istanbul in its historical and urban culture
  • reclaiming spaces from a Feminist approach – a case study of Istanbul
  • the spatial politics of the films of early 20th century Istanbul
  • public bathing as a medicinal space (late early modern to the start of the modern era Ottoman Empire)
  • spiritual counseling services in public hospitals provided by the religious affairs directorate in Turkey in relation to secularism discussions
  • the role of Qat in Yemeni society and politics
  • narrative map of the layers of memory associated with the Dome of the Rock
  • cultural heritage and repatriation amid the postcolonial age: discussion on the Pergamon Museum
  • voices from the streets: exploring the dynamics and impact of Sokak Röportajları (street interviews) in Turkey
  • What do ‘Increasing Spiritual New Age Practices’ tell us?
  • Sports understanding in petro-dollar rich Middle Eastern Countries

Environmental Studies and Globalization

  • Turkey’s agricultural globalization and its effects on the local agriculture – a case study of hazelnut

Language and Knowledge

  • language and power: the story of how language policy turned the world into a class-based society
  • diglossia in the “Arab World” and its role in knowledge production (Egyptian and Syrian)
  • Arabic language instruction in German universities: exploring Orientalist dimensions in academic practices
  • MiddleEastGPT? comparative analysis of Large Language Models’ training data biases
  • criticism on the formation and use of the term ‘Middle East’

Literature, Art, and Philosophy

  • female sleuths in Nihal Karamağaralı’s crime novels
  • Magical Realism as a political technique in contemporary Turkish and Persian novels
  • brushing against tradition: a critical examination of female artistry in the late Ottoman period through the lens of Mihri Rasim
  • the Ottoman Empire and the erasure Armenian Craftspeople, special focus one of the oldest instrument makers in the world: the Zildjian family
  • phenomenology as a method of Talmudic hermeneutics: the case of Amrei Inshei in Bava Kamma

writing seminar, task to confirm the topic for the final paper

Writing time begins!

Write to me an email from your @fu-berlin.de email address with your intended topic (a working title and short description will suffice) and I will then confirm the deadline. This step is administratively necessary. I will only accept papers which have been confirmed during this week, at best by Tuesday, 28.11.2023, 6 PM.

biopolitics, short essay on Crip Nationalism: Pluralizing Embodiments – A Crip Take on Cultural Citizenship

Let’s join scholar Jasbir Puar on a voyage interrogating bodily norms intertwined with cultural ideals of consummate citizenship. Her conception of ‘Crip Nationalism’ challenges state ideologies and social systems cementing ableism by design. It subverts constructions of disability as inherent tragedy or defect, instead locating it in exclusionary infrastructures and policies. Crucially, Crip Nationalism goes beyond deconstructing disability as dis-ease. It reconstructs visions of inclusive citizenship unbounded by bodily conformity.

Take stock of neoliberal capitalist logics worshipping the figure of the unencumbered productive worker-citizen, freely laboring without ‘burdensome’ difference. Such ruling doctrines dismiss bodies that differ from standardized physical or mental norms as drains requiring heavy ‘care’. Historically scientists exploited disabled prisoners as innoculation test subjects because their ‘unfit’ bodies seemed conveniently expendable.

Let’s tune our ears to counter-hegemonic melodies. Behold Shireen, disabled activist, belting anti-carceral protest chants from her motorized wheelchair, embodying Staci Haines’ framework of ‘epic generativity’. Her glittering placard decrees Access for ALL! No Exceptions!” Revel in her joy dethroning tropes of helplessness while demanding rights not pity.

Don’t overlook Pancho, radical veteran dissenter, blasting boots-on-the-ground critiques of militarized ableism. He calibrates carefully between his own injury and collective responsibility for warfare’s unequal brutalization of marginalizedgroups. His poignant question haunts Whose bodies become cannon fodder and why?”

Such subversive soloists accompany orchestral visions for justice spanning technology access, disability arts and culture, solidarity across bodily difference. Their rousing refrain? Dare to dream up citizens’ assemblies where the so-called ‘abnormal’ help authorize policies prioritizing care and inter-dependence!

Heed Crip Nationalism’s urgent call to pluralize bodily ideals undergirding cultural citizenship and state belonging. Let’s collectively re-author more capacious horizons for enfranchisement beyond ableist bounds. Our stories will resound with manifold motifs, recognitions and freedoms for wobbly, wonky, differently-wired embodiments!