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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Lebanon and the Measuring of West Asia
The war between the United States, Israel and Iran has set West Asia ablaze—and Lebanon has once again become one of its frontlines. As a result, Carolin Loysa had to leave Lebanon on short notice, along with her family there. In this text, she tries to make sense of what is currently happening, describing Lebanon in the context of a far-reaching geopolitical reordering of the region, in which the country is less an actor than a stage for developments that extend far beyond its own political conflicts.
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We are once again being fascisized
Patrick Eiden-Offe has published an essay in Merkur on the history of the theory and concept of the process of “fascization,” which has many advantages over the static concept of “fascism,” in particular its emphasis on openness, volatility, and elasticity. And it requires us to address the functional dependence of fascism and democracy.
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James Joyce in Ulm Prison
For alleged “security reasons,” no books may be donated to the prison library at Ulm Prison in south-west Germany, nor are prisoners allowed to be sent, or buy fiction, even from online retailers. Yet human rights also apply behind bars. The right to read is part of the right to education, access to ideas, and personal development. PEN should take this on.
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The President of the German Association of University Presidents warns
A pick by Anne Gräfe: On February 4, 2026, “table media” published an interview with Walter Rosenthal in which he warns of growing political pressure and calls for protective mechanisms. Reliability in research funding, international cooperation, and strong self-administration of universities must be guaranteed.
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Dishonest honesty law in North Rhine-Westphalia
An un-pick: The planned “University Strengthening Act” in North Rhine-Westphalia does not strengthen universities, but gives politicians greater powers of intervention. The Ministry of Science is being given leverage to more easily get rid of troublesome university members and leadership, such as those at the Düsseldorf Art Academy recently.
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Iran: Between Regime Massacres and US-Israeli Instrumentalization
Pegah Byroum-Wand picks an interview with historian Prof. Arang Keshavarzian on the current situation in Iran, trapped between regime massacres and the US and Israel’s exploitative agendas. Outside Iran, the main task remains not to rashly take sides, but to work on one’s own understanding of the complex (geo)political, socioeconomic, and historical factors that shape the situation.
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Debanking practices in Europe – if it happens to one, it happens to all
Anne Baillot and Alexandra Keiner analyze current cases of bank account closures (“debanking”) in an international context since 9/11 on Etosmedia. They show how European banks are influenced by political decisions and advocate for greater financial sovereignty and solidarity.
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Disability Studies – under serious threat
At the turn of the year, largely unnoticed by the public, funding was withdrawn from the most important institutions of Disability Studies (DS) in German-speaking countries. Their emancipatory approach, which originated in the disability movement (“Nothing about us without us”), is in danger of falling victim to the authoritarian shift. Yet it was they who first established that non-disability is always only temporary and that critical engagement with the issue of disability is relevant for EVERYONE.
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BDS: A call to boycott institutions, not individuals
In an interview with Deutschlandfunk on the „Academic Boycott Conference“ in Berlin, Dörthe Engelcke explains that calls for a boycott of Israeli state universities are protected by freedom of expression and that the goals of the BDS movement are in line with international law. Some of the goals and means of the boycott are also supported by EU governments.
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Countering intimidation
Benjamin Schütze writes in the taz about an attempt at censorship by an antisemitism commissioner and how German “reasons of state” are being used to establish authoritarian anti-antisemitism. Society must decide how to deal with this.
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The imperial Federal Republic of Germany
Kai Koddenbrock and Carolin Fiete Norina Voß have published their research findings in “New Political Economy” on the shifts in German security, economic, and foreign policy in recent years, from an imperialism theory perspective.
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Critical international law, in solidarity
In an interview for the London Review of International Law, international law scholar Nahed Samour reflects on “doing international law” during genocide. She proposes a pragmatic, positivist-realist approach: to engage critically with international law’s implications in structural injustice, and at the same time to advance its liberatory and egalitarian aims, e.g. by advocating for the application of the Genocide Convention.
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Eight measures that universities and academics can take
Ilyas Saliba has published an article in the journal “Wissenschaft & Frieden” (“Science & Peace”) about the consequences of the erosion of academic freedom for open society and how Germany is affected by it. He proposes eight concrete measures that scientists and universities can use as a guide.
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Knowledge under general suspicion
This article was originally published in French under the title “Studying the Arab and Muslim world—a risky profession?” in Club de Mediapart. It concludes: behind the cancellations of academic events on Israel/Palestine lies a general disregard for academic freedom, but above all a particular contempt for research on and researchers from the “Middle East”.
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India’s undeclared state of emergency
Ernst Fraenkel’s “The Dual State” (1938) lends itself to the analysis of today’s processes of fascization. Julia Eckert picks up on a book by Arvind Narrain, published in 2021, which applies the concepts of the “prerogative state” and the “normative state” to contemporary India and advocates a strategy of “constitutional resistance.”
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Colonial versus anti-colonial transgressions of the civilian–combatant divide
To further enrich the discussion on “genocide”/“war,” Jevgeniy Bluwstein “picks” an article by Nicola Perugini that addresses the distinction between civilians and combatants under international law. Perugini shows from a decolonial perspective why international law drives both sides – anti-colonial resistance and colonial violence – to transgression.
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The terms “war” and “genocide” should not be played off against each other.
Here is another contribution to the debate on the terminology of genocide and war (following the “pick” on Dirk Moses’ “Problems of Genocide” from May 2025). From the perspective of Peace and Conflict Studies, we argue that the mass violence in Gaza is extensively documented: even if the legal verdict on genocide is still pending, the “genocidal war” has long been proven. Using the concept of war, we can insist that political consequences must be drawn on this basis alone, for example, in relation to the Israeli government.
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Federal Ministry of Education and Research ignores expert opinions when awarding funding
The research platform Correctiv has discovered that the Federal Ministry of Education and Research is funding a company owned by Ahmad Mansour with almost nine million euros, even though experts commissioned by the ministry itself explicitly advised against it – and this at a time when funding for science and culture is being cut everywhere else.
Selected and offered by KriSol – A Space for Debate
The Editorial Collective currently consists of Marion Detjen, Julia Eckert, Isabel Feichtner und Christian Strippel.