November 2, 2007

A New Fact on the Ground: Nadia Abu El-Haj Wins Tenure at Barnard College

Barnard College just announced that Nadia Abu El-Haj, an anthropologist whose tenure bid has been the subject of withering online debate for weeks, has been promoted to the rank of associate professor.

A Barnard statement released this afternoon says that Ms. Abu El-Haj has passed a “highly rigorous review” to receive tenure at the college. “The process will be procedurally complete after the decision has been presented to the boards of trustees at both Barnard and Columbia,” the statement says, “but it is expected that Professor Abu El-Haj will earn the rank of associate professor.”

Ms. Abu El-Haj, who has remained silent throughout her tenure review, came under intense fire for her book Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society.

Ask Ms. Abu El-Haj’s publisher, and the book is an anthropological study of “an Israel where science and politics are mutually constituted.” Ask her online critics, and it is a piece of postmodernist propaganda that “asserts that the ancient Israelite kingdoms are a ‘pure political fabrication.’”

Ms. Abu El-Haj’s tenure bid became the subject of two warring petitions. The first, “Deny Nadia Abu El-Haj Tenure,” was posted by Paula R. Stern, an alumna of Barnard who lives in Israel. The second, “Grant Nadia Abu El-Haj Tenure,” came from academics who supported her.

The final tally of signatures: “Deny,” 2,592; “Grant,” 2,057. —John Gravois

Comments

1. I would enjoy checking exactly what those out-of-context quotes were. Is there a page dedicated to this ?

   — littlehorn    Nov 3, 11:42 AM    #

2. Although I would appear to disagree with every assumption of her scholarly work (I have not read what has not been revealed), I think that to conduct a tenure review using any other criteria than norms of scientific rigor demonstrates that academia can still thrive in a free society.

   — Arthur Lustig    Nov 5, 06:21 AM    #

3. Richard Silverstein’s blog has a useful thread on the issue; some of the posts deal directly with the use of out-of-context quotes. See http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/index.php?s=nadia+abu+el-haj

   — Gregory Starrett    Nov 5, 09:44 AM    #

4. Her receiving tenure demonstrates just how powerless the Israel lobby really is.

   — Concerned Citizen    Nov 5, 11:03 AM    #

5. So … Ms Abu El-Haj has published a book that has led to spirited debate and over 4600 butinskis have weighed in on her case. I’d say she’s having an impact on her field. Of course this is far less important than whether I agree with her.

   — Jay    Nov 5, 11:44 AM    #

6. The uncomfortable truth for Jewish, Christian and Islamic archaeologists is that their respective professional and religious claims and accusations to and about Israel/Palestine fail to disclose (under the penalty of state banishment and/or death) that their respective religions and histories are based on nothing more than astrological mythologies created out of whole cloths inherited from their geographical ancestors. Scratch beneath the veneers of their deadly Abrahamic chauvinism and you will find recycled stories of sky gods and god-men whose exploits reveal nothing more than primitive men attempting to interpret the mysterious sights and movements of what we now know to be the sun, moon, planets and stars. Their enduring legacy is not holy revelation, but perpetual violence, war, suffering, and the tawdry fortune-telling of the priesthood and their zodiacs.

   — marci    Nov 5, 01:03 PM    #

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