To enhance its educational and cultural offerings, AUC's Distinguished Visiting Professor program brings a number of eminent scholars, writers, and artists to campus for short-term lectureships or workshops. Leading scholars of religion, prominent historians, expert law professors, and world-renowned scientists are among the broad array of distinguished visiting professors who come to AUC each year to teach, conduct research and deliver public lectures. Through these visits, the University serves as a prime venue for the exchange of ideas, intellectual debate and cultural outreach.
Shuhada Street in Hebron/al-Khalil (Photo: gettingoffthearmchair.wordpress.com)
At the end of 2008, Israel went to war on the Gaza Strip on a scale not seen in Palestine for decades. The Israeli military’s International Law Department had spent months prior crafting ‘legal advice that allowed for large numbers of civilian casualties’. This heralded the starting point of formal Palestinian interaction with the International Criminal Court, with an initial failed attempt by the Palestinian authorities to trigger ICC jurisdiction over crimes committed in occupied Palestine. It would be a long twelve years before eventually, in February and March 2021, the ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber ruled that the Court does indeed have jurisdiction and the Prosecutor confirmed that an investigation will now proceed. Through these years, the Office of the Prosecutor often appeared at pains to draw out the wrangling over the preliminary question of whether it could accept jurisdictio
Duke University Press Workers Union s campaign is the latest in a wave of organizing in the media and publishing industries. Photo: DUPWU
Update May 5: The Duke University Press Workers Union officially filed for an election on May 3. Eds
After years of high turnover, low pay, and discriminatory practices affecting people of color and queer people, workers at Duke University Press in Durham, North Carolina, are organizing a union.
The 120 workers do a wide range of jobs: editorial work on journals and books, sales and marketing, IT and business tech. Most are women and most are white although mostly men occupy the upper-level positions, a reflection of the university publishing industry.
After a brutal winter, made even more difficult by the pandemic and killer storms, the Spring Equinox has arrived and warmer weather days are in sight. The following new non-fiction books are a good way to welcome the new season.
Let Me Tell You What I Mean (Knopf, 2021) by celebrated writer Joan Didion opens with a lengthy intro by gay writer
Hilton Als, before delighting readers with previously uncollected essays written between 20 and 50 years ago on topics as timely as ever, including college admissions stress, addiction programs, the state of journalism, as well as one on the late gay photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, all in her sharp observational style.
Paige West, Environmental Anthropologist, Wins Guggenheim Fellowship
(Ben Ruli)
Paige West has won her second prestigious award of 2021 and it’s only April. News of her Guggenheim Fellowship win this month follows closely on the heels of her selection as one of the Explorer’s Club 50 in February. She is one of two Earth Institute faculty to win the Guggenheim Fellowship this year, joining her colleague Sidney Hemming from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.(
West, who is the Claire Tow Professor of Anthropology at Barnard College and director of the Center for the Study of Social Difference at Columbia University, reflected on her career thus far, and shared thoughts on what she’s doing next and what the Fellowship means for her.