Reckoning with October 7: Israel, Hamas, and the Problem of Critical Theory
A TPPI Conference
November 8–9, 2024
New York City
 The Telos-Paul Piccone Institute welcomes paper proposals for a conference that reckons with the response, both within higher education at large and especially from the precincts of critical theory, to the atrocities perpetrated by Hamas on October 7, 2023. The conference will cap a year of webinars, podcasts, blog posts, and publications about the topic, and will form the basis of a special memorial issue of the journal Telos. Full papers intended for that special issue will also be considered at this time.
Beginning in the immediate, politicized aftermath of the Hamas atrocities, theory has been present—in ways that should give us pause. It was present in sublimated ways, as widespread presuppositions and “narratives” infused with charismatic authority by a popularized postcolonial jargon. It was there in kinetic, emotionally charged, intellectually unsophisticated responses, in “mass” demonstrations, public statements by groups and institutions, and individual social media campaigns. It was there in “intersectional” ideology. Yet above all, it was manifest in considered, open, intentional ways within universities, as well as among educated elites taught and credentialed by them. The college campus, the traditional home of critical theory—which emerged in the twentieth century most powerfully as a response to fascism and Nazism—has become a nodal point for the dramatic unfolding of a cognitively, morally, and politically deficient discourse about a present-day Kristallnacht.
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By David Pan · Tuesday, October 31, 2023 As Israel begins its attack on Hamas, it will be important to remember the underlying sources of war that will ultimately be the target of Israel’s efforts. Most leftists in the United States and Europe attempt to blame Israel for the continuation of hostilities. But the variety of enmity that fuels the war comes primarily from the Palestinian side. Hamas’s attack on Israel demonstrates that it sees Israel and Israelis as what Carl Schmitt called an “absolute enemy,” against which there can be no compromise and against which the primary strategy is eradication. There clearly can be no peace as long as this attitude prevails. It is also clear that Israel does not share this kind of enemy thinking. In fact, it has worked over the decades to integrate Palestinians into its society and economy. Arabs and Palestinians continue to live and work within Israel, in stark contrast to the plight of Israelis who remain in Gaza primarily as hostages. If the war cannot end until each side stops treating the other side as an absolute enemy, then Israelis have shown their willingness to live alongside Palestinians—while Palestinian leaders have demonstrated the opposite.
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By Telos Press · Monday, October 30, 2023 In sorrow, the Telos-Paul Piccone Institute, in cooperation with the journal Telos, announces a series of events and publications designed to explore the place of critical theory in the response within the American university to the atrocities perpetrated by Hamas on October 7, 2023.
From the start of this war, theory was present. It was present in sublimated ways, as widespread presuppositions and “narratives,” infused with charismatic authority by a popularized “postcolonial” jargon. It was present in kinetic, emotionally charged, intellectually unsophisticated responses in “mass” demonstrations, public statements by groups and institutions, and individual social media campaigns. Yet above all, it was manifest in considered, open, intentional ways, within our universities. The American college campus, the traditional home of critical theory—which emerged in the twentieth century most powerfully as a response to fascism and Nazism—has become a nodal point for the dramatic unfolding of a morally and politically deficient discourse about a present-day Kristallnacht.
What can this state of affairs tell us about American higher education? What does it reveal about the fate of “theory” itself, in concrete, practical, and abstract theoretical terms? How does the ritual deployment of certain theoretical vocabularies in response to the attacks help obscure the interests and power of the New Class of managers, information workers, social engineers, and therapeutic organizers, against which Telos has launched a sustained critique since 1968? What does it signify that many members of this powerful strata have learned to conceive of justice and injustice in terms of reified castes in a hierarchy of victimhood, such that racial, ethnic, national, religious, sexual, or gender identity are largely equated with individual moral culpability or innocence? How have theories critical of symbolic violence turned into justifications for actual violence? And how is this justification of actual violence “by any means necessary” emancipated from any ethical constraints? How do macro-level geopolitical concerns provide a larger context for understanding the place of critical theory in the response to October 7?
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By Telos Press · Friday, September 10, 2021 CFP: Western Political Science Association Panel
Alex Stubberfield and Jennifer Lawrence
Upon the 25th anniversary of Ecocritique, we invite a conversation about the enduring relevance of critical environmental theory to understanding how political power shapes nature, culture, and the global eco/logical order. Contemporary political environmental crises highlight the necessity of unflinching scholarship revealing contradictions within extractive capitalism pointing to how social organizations purporting to act under the aegis of our collective ecological health often sustain environmental degradation. Celebrating the resonant work of Timothy W. Luke, we invite paper submissions that are inspired by the theories, methods, and provocations employed in Ecocritique: Contesting the Politics of Nature, Economy, and Culture (1997). We are interested in papers addressing critical theories of ecological modernization, the inscriptive power of accumulation regimes within environmental orders, and the promises and perils of bright green futures.
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By Telos Press · Friday, April 14, 2017 Twenty-five years after the end of the Cold War, there is arguably a crisis of democracy: not only has the transition from totalitarian communism failed to bring about liberal market capitalism, but politics in mature democracies has been becoming post-democratic. Models of authoritarianism and state capitalism are spreading in different parts of the world, while countries with long-standing democratic traditions are characterized by a rejection of the political mainstream and a turn to extremes on the far left or the far right.
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By Telos Press · Friday, February 10, 2017 Constitutional Theory as Cultural Problem:
Global Perspectives
January 19–21, 2018
New York, NY
The International Center for Critical Theory and the Telos-Paul Piccone Institute will jointly host a conference entitled “Constitutional Theory as Cultural Problem: Global Perspectives,” to be held at New York University, New York, from January 19–21, 2018.
The challenges faced by the liberal democratic model in the 21st century have made constitutional theory into an urgent topic of global concern. Both the second Iraq War and the revolutions of the Arab Spring frustrated hopes of an easy trajectory toward liberal democratic constitutional orders. If there was the hope that liberation would mean the establishment of liberal democracy, the result has been that emancipation from tyranny does not naturally lead in a particular political direction. Such a conclusion presents fundamental problems for a constitutional theory that is built around a liberal democratic model.
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