“Freedom of speech and academic freedom on the verge of crisis: Reexamining discourses on ‘antisemitism’ and the Israel-Palestine question through an event of Ghassan Hage,” will be held by X00 Organizer of “Islamic Trust Studies” Project with the Seminar of Prof. Yoshikazu Shiobara, at the Graduate School of Law/the Graduate School of Sociology, Keio University.

Date: Monday, May 13, 2024 18:30-20:30
Venue: Classroom 421, South School Building, Mita Campus, Keio University
Capacity: 150 participants (in person, in order of registration) & Online via Webinar
Conditions: Open to Public, Admission Free, Pre-registration required
Pre-registration: https://forms.gle/fEsE7wCahjMSpR788
(Online participants will be informed of the Webinar information on May 12, the day before the symposium)
Contact: Islamic Trust Studies Project Office (connectivity_jimukyoku@tufs.ac.jp)

Program:
1. Yoshikazu Shiobara (Sociology, Faculty of Law, Keio University)
“The crisis of critical discourses and the solidarity: Unfolding ‘The statement in support of Professor Ghassan Hage from concerned scholars and citizens in Japan’”
2. Mayuko Maekawa (Cultural Anthropology, Faculty of Sociology, Kyoto Sangyo University)
“A Brief introduction to the works of Ghassan Hage”
3. Kenichiro Komori (History of European thought, Faculty of Humanities, Musashi University)
“Nationalism as anti-antisemitism: A case of Germany”
4. Hidemitsu Kuroki (Area Studies of the Arab East, ILCAA, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies)
“Cognitive warfare on terrorism and civilization: Why are we easily beaten?”

Moderator: Jin Noda (Central Asia Studies, ILCAA/SRC, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies)

Purpose of the symposium:
Prof. Ghassan Hage is a world-renowned anthropologist for various stimulating works including the following Japanese translations: White Nation: Fantasies of White Supremacy in a Multicultural Society, Against Paranoid Nationalism: Searching for Hope in a Shrinking Society, and Alter-Politics: Critical Anthropology and the Radical Imagination. After leaving Australia, Prof. Hage started his new research activities at the Max Planck Society in 2023, but he was dismissed from his post for his statement criticizing the Israeli ethnic cleansing/genocide in Gaza, Palestine.
It was a shocking news as this kind of appalling measure was taken in Germany against the researcher, who has raised, through his works, very important questions on how multicultural/multiethnic human societies should be.
Moreover, this news revealed that the Western societies, which were expected to respect the freedom of thought and speech, significantly harm the potential of academic contributions to human society and shed light on the long-hidden aspects of the Israel–Palestine question (similar cases were found against Judith Butler in France, Masha Gessen and Nancy Fraser in Germany, and three university presidents in the United States: Harvard, MIT, and Pennsylvania). Prof. Hage’s case evoked a worldwide response but does not seem to be broadly known to the Japanese population, apart from concerning researchers.
At this symposium, through discussions by a sociologist and an anthropologist who have played a leading role in introducing Prof. Hage’s works and other researchers of the history of European thought and the Arab East, a sense of crisis will be shared: we are standing at an extremely critical crossroad in the general sphere of scholarship/research, as well as in the realities of international politics.

Co-organizer：
X00 Grant-in Aid for Transformative Research Areas (A)“Connectivity and Trust Building in Islamic Civilization” (Area Organizer: Hidemitsu KUROKI (ILCAA); 20H05823); Seminar of Dr. Shiobara, at the Graduate School of Law/the Graduate School of Sociology, Keio University.