Debatte aims to share knowledge – generously and critically, resisting the authoritarian drift with nuance. It draws on ideas and discussions from the Alliance for Critical Scholarship in Solidarity (KriSol). It offers three genres: Picks are short, introductory texts or commentaries on articles by other authors and published elsewhere, which we consider important and want to share with a wider public. Drops recommend publications by KriSol members. Posts are longer contributions that we write ourselves or ask others to write – reflections, reports, reviews, letters, short reports, comments, interviews …
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Disgust and eroticism of the new fascist body
Dagmar Herzog’s book: “Der neue faschistische Körper” (The New Fascist Body) expands current theories of fascism to include the intersectional category of disability. Fascism today, as in the past, makes racism “sexy” and produces, exploits, and links the sexualized charges of reproduction and disgust toward vulnerable bodies. Here, the fascist “co-option” of the postmodern contestation against truth turns out as a challenge for theory formation.
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Academic freedom – for whom, for what, and to what end?
The “Zeitschrift für Medienwissenschaft” (Journal of Media Studies) is hosting a debate on academic freedom initiated by Kathrin Peters and Katrin Köppert. The contributions take as their starting point the reactions of universities to the genocidal war in Gaza.
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Antisemitism training at US universities
The Jewish-American publication platform ‘Forward’ took a closer look at an “anti-bias” video with which the Northwestern University in Chicago is attempting to comply with Trump’s regulations on the alleged fight against anti-Semitism. The video, which is mandatory for all students, violates basic scientific principles and also labels Jewish anti-Zionists as antisemites.
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Media analysis: Hierarchies of death
Jannis Grimm, Justus Könneker, and Mariam Salehi study, recently published in the peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary journal “Peacebuilding”, compares German media coverage of Palestinian and of Israeli fatalities in the first six weeks after October 7, 2023. As expected, Palestinian lives count for far less than Israeli lives.
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“Never again” must apply universally
In his article for the magazine südlink, Alexander Schwarz denounces the German government for undermining fundamental principles of international law and demands that “Never again” be universally applied.
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Political conditions for the possibility of science
How political is science? How political should it be? When must it become political? In her guest post on the Wiarda blog, Hanna Pfeifer addresses these questions and the boundaries between political activism and scientific activity.
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How the recognition of Palestine is being debated in France
“It’s as if they’re saying to us: Now I recognize you, your name is Palestine, you can disappear,” claims Palestinian journalist Rami Abou Jamous, who is currently trapped with his family in Gaza in the hell of an ongoing genocide. It seems obvious that recognizing the Palestinian state will not stop the genocide, occupation, and apartheid. But perhaps it is even worse. Or perhaps not? In France, a debate has begun on the risks and opportunities of the recognition policy under international law.
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The Nova Exhibition – immersive entertainment and deceptive unambiguity
On the second anniversary of October 7, the traveling “Nova Music Festival Exhibition” is set to open in the former Berlin-Tempelhof Airport building. Naomi Klein and Ben Ratskoff have written insightful texts on dealing with trauma, the affective strategies and political implications of exhibitions and films that seek to make the horror of the massacre “relivable.” The deliberate collapse of critical distance carries the risk of aestheticizing the trauma and of further dehumanization.
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International Law in times of increasing authoritarianism
In an interview with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Professor William Schabas (Middlesex University), one of the world’s leading experts in international criminal law and genocide studies, clearly outlines the international legal situation with regard to Gaza and the complicity of parts of the international community, above all the US and Germany.
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Japanese government seeks to deprive the Science Council of Japan of its autonomy
Japan is not an exception to the threats against academic freedom even in ostensibly “liberal democracies”. A bill passed by Japan’s Legislature seeks to dissolve the Science Council of Japan (SCJ), the country’s national academy, and establish a “new” SCJ that lacks autonomy and will be more vulnerable to government interference. The suspected purpose is to subject the sciences to the interests of the military-industrial complex in Japan.
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Ruling by the German Federal Constitutional Court with Implications for Arms Deliveries to Israel
German support for US drone attacks in Yemen does not violate fundamental rights, the Federal Constitutional Court has ruled. Despite the disappointing outcome of the proceedings, Sué González Hauck and Jens Theilen argue that there are incipient legal standards contained in the judgment that prevent the supply of weapons to Israel.
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Refusal to cooperate with Israeli institutions
To date, 300 academics in and from Germany have signed a German version of the “Uppsala Declaration” and, for reasons of conscience, have declared their refusal to cooperate with the Israeli state and Israeli institutions involved in genocide and occupation. This is expressly NOT a boycott of individual Israeli academics.
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“Don’t Woman Life Freedom Us, You Murderers!”
With their statement, the feminist collective Roja is fighting back against attempts to exploit the Iranian and Kurdish women’s and freedom movements for Israel’s wars, as well as against the exploitation of the “Twelve Days War” for repression in Iran.
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An invisible university for Ukraine and the rest of the world
An anthology by teachers and students on what can be learned from the war in Ukraine: a realignment of the relationship between research, teaching, and civic engagement; the integration of academic knowledge with existential experience; and the recognition that the “fog of war” will remain an epistemological challenge.
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Fascism – normality, not exception
Are we on the road to fascism, has fascism long since arrived, or is the concept of fascism no longer valid today? These are questions that many people are asking themselves today. Alberto Toscano’s latest book reformulates them in such a way that the relevance of the term fascism becomes clear in a different way: fascism and capitalist liberal democracy are always interrelat-ed and belong together—and are experienced very differently by different groups.
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Dossier on the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism (JDA)
Peter Ullrich presents a detailed overview of the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism (JDA) in the antisemitism dossier of Clio-Online, the academic portal for historical studies, as a counterproposal to the IHRA definition and an attempt at correction. The dossier explains the background, the process of its creation, and the main characteristics of the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism (JDA) and its definition, and addresses points of criticism.
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RIAS reports on “antisemitic incidents” under scrutiny
No doubt antisemitism is increasing dramatically – in its narrow definition as hostility toward Jews because they are Jews. Nothing would be more necessary than careful statistics, a reliable database, and appropriate monitoring to better understand its forms, causes, extent, and locations, regardless of political affiliation, and to combat it more effectively. Unfortunately, however, RIAS (the Federal Association of Research and Information Centers on Antisemitism) works with premises and under conditions that conflict with good academic practice.
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The Serbian government’s revenge on students and professors
For the past six months, the conflict between universities and civil society on the one hand and the government on the other has been escalating in Serbia. Adriana Zaharijević and Jana Krstić have compiled a chronology of events, from the protests against corruption following the collapse of the train station in Novi Sad at the end of 2024 to the government’s current plans for revenge and repression against universities.
Selected and offered by KriSol – A Space for Debate
The Editorial Collective currently consists of Marion Detjen, Julia Eckert, Isabel Feichtner und Christian Strippel.