As the trial for the murder of George Floyd unfolds in Minneapolis, Minnesota, we are reminded of the value of human life and the brutal ease with which (some) lives are taken. In rage and reflection, we welcome Professor Judith Butler (University of California, Berkeley) and Professor Ilan Pappé (University of Exeter) to share their understandings of what it means to be human, based on their extensive work with violence and resistance in Palestine, the United States and beyond. From the politics of critique and frames of war to ethics, vulnerability, and grief, we invite Professors Butler and Pappé to consider how violence shapes and moves us – but does not determine us. 

At a time marked by suffering and inequality, we look to these esteemed scholars to trace how power operates, exposing particular bodies and communities to violence and devastation. Yet we also ask Professors Butler and Pappé to reflect on the new worlds and collectivities that might be built through radical acts of imagination. Please join us for what promises to be an extraordinary conversation.

Professors Butler and Pappé will be in conversation for 45 minutes, followed by 30 minutes of moderated Q & A.

The discussion will be chaired by Dr. Katie Natanel, Clara El-Akiki and Roba Al-Salibi (IAIS).

This event is organised by the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, the European Centre for Palestine Studies and the Exeter Decolonising Network.

Registration will close on Wednesday 28 April at 3pm. Details of how to join the online seminar will be sent to the email address you used to register, 24 hours before the event.

Judith Butler, Maxine Elliot Professor of Comparative Literature at The University of California Berkeley, is renowned for their work in gender and sexuality, feminist and queer theory, philosophy, literature, and critical theory. They are one of the most influential and innovative thinkers of our time, having developed ground-breaking approaches to power, discourse and identity – often by asking what is at stake in the reproduction of dominant frameworks. While their scholarship powerfully ‘troubles’ and enriches academia, Butler’s work also impacts activism from queer and feminist politics to anti-racism and critiques of Zionism. They are active in several human rights organizations, including the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York and the advisory board of Jewish Voice for Peace. Their bestselling works include Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity(1990); Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex” (1993); The Psychic Life of Power: Theories of Subjection (1997); Precarious Life: Powers of Violence and Mourning (2004); Frames of War: When is Life Grievable? (2009); Parting Ways: Jewishness and the Critique of Zionism (2012); and Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly (2015). Their most recent book The Force of Nonviolence: An Ethico-Political Bind was published by Verso Press in 2020.

Ilan Pappé, Professor of History and Director of the European Centre for Palestine Studies (ECPS), University of Exeter, is an expatriate Israeli historian and socialist activist. He is one of the ‘New Historians’ who, since the release of pertinent British and Israeli government documents in the early 1980s, have been rewriting the history of Israel’s creation in 1948. Pappé's research contextualises the history of Palestine into a larger global context of settler colonialism and challenges the dominant Israeli narrative. In addition to his work with ECPS, he chaired the Emil Tuma Institute for Palestine Studies in Haifa (Israel) and is a founding member of the new movement, "The One Democratic State Initiative." He is the author of the bestselling A History of Modern Palestine (2006); The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (2007); The Israel/Palestine Question (2007); The Forgotten Palestinians: A History of the Palestinians in Israel (2013); and The Idea of Israel: A History of Power and Knowledge (2016). He has also written two books with Noam Chomsky: Gaza in Crisis (2011) and On Palestine (2015). Pappé’s 2016 book The Biggest Prison on Earth: A History of the Occupied Territories received the Palestine Book Award.