Academic Mores and Manners in the Salaita Affair
I’m noticing that some people, all hardcore defenders of Israel, including some academics, are now taking pot shots at Salaita’s work. Some flack on Twitter even called Salaita “the ersatz professor.” I won’t link to any of it; it’s just shabby and shoddy and needs no further audience.
I wonder about the academics, in particular, who are dabbling in this business of drive-by assassination.
On the one hand, I firmly believe we should be able to get into substantive discussions of people’s work, and should be able to evaluate what is good work and what is not, even across disciplines and fields. No one’s work is or should be immune from that kind of critique.
On the other hand, I would remind my colleagues in academe of two things.
First, it takes a long time to familiarize yourself with a literature and a field, to understand its debates, its ins and outs. I deeply resent it when someone thinks they can just dive-bomb into a discussion I’m a part of without having done some background work of his (and it is, almost always, a dude) own: not because I have a fetish for expertise or academic authority but because I respect the work of intellectual labor, the amount of dedication, effort, and stamina that is required to truly understand and master a set of arguments. I respect people who’ve done the work—and expect that respect in turn. That some academics, who have no background or demonstrated record in Salaita’s field (indeed, can’t even bother to figure out what his field of expertise actually is), think they can now just hunt around his books and articles in order to draw fatal conclusions about his talents shows a profound disrespect for our collective enterprise. Indeed, a profound disrespect for themselves.
Second, and related to this, we are now in a heated political battle. This is no longer an academic or scholarly give-and-take; it’s more akin to the skullduggery of Congress, or the fuckery of capital. You would think the fact that one of the progenitors of these attacks on Salaita is a professor of video games—or in the past, that one of the mocking critics of the ASA and its boycott edited a book on presidential doodles—would give these critics pause. Would make them wonder whether or not their research, which I have no reason to doubt is anything less than outstanding, could not be painted in an equally preposterous light.
But of course they don’t worry about that because they’ve picked the right side of power in this debate.
But here’s the thing about the right side of power: sides, like the sands, can shift, power can become powerlessness. That’s something that intellectuals, even the house intellectuals of power, used to know. Just read Machiavelli’s dedication to Lorenzo de’ Medici in The Prince.
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43 Comments
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joel in Oakland
Of course, we are talking about reactionary thought/speech here, rather than reflective thought. And of course that means thought/speech in service of fight/flight response, where the reflective functions of cortex are taken off line (along with other non-essential functions for immediate survival, like digestion and immunity) to avoid hindering the energy and quick response needed for attack and defence. The more serious the threat is believed to be, the harder is turning off the process and re-engaging reflective function – not that it’s impossible by any means, just that it takes both practice and a sense of self that’s robust enough to not be too rattled by the triggered fight/flight response. (That doesn’t mean remaining “calm”, but rather, calm enough to be able to access reflectivity while also marshalling as much aggression as one feels is appropriate without falling into black-white thinking, for example).
Obviously, in this case, we’re dealing with aspects of tribal identity that are part of important neural structures, defense of which brings out lots of aggression, unfortunately largely at the expense of reflective function – of the ability to “play with ideas”, to consider various possible trains of thought – remain thoughtful – without having to slam any doors shut to defend the castle.
FWIW trauma history plays a big part in all this. There’s lots of interesting work in this area between neuropsych and psychotherapy over the last 25 years, especially the last 10.
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Salaita is emerging as a star professor, thanks to the compulsive efforts of the adherents of the doctrine of civility. Perhaps the doctrine, championed by corporate managers, senior academic administrators, entrepreneurs and wealthy donors, will become law in corporate America and in the public sector, where it will reign in managers contemptuous of staff, who currently enjoy no protection from rude and dismissive behavior from supervisors.
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Robin criticizes academics “who have no background or demonstrated record in Salaita’s field” who have opined on Salaita’s work. Here is Salaita’s dissertation, which is a comparative analysis of colonialism in the New World and the Holy Land:
https://shareok.org/bitstream/handle/11244/558/3077424.PDF?sequence=1
Based on a brief Google search, it appears that none of the faculty who signed off on his thesis (including Robert Warrior, the director of UIUC’s American Indian Studies program) have any expertise on the history of Israel-Palestine or Zionism.Can you please clarify whether it is true that none of the faculty who approved Salaita’s thesis have a background or demonstrated record in the history of Israel-Palestine and Zionism? As you must know, Salaita’s characterization of Zionism as a form of colonialism is contested by many academics who are experts on the subject matter.
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ased on a brief Google search
In the category of “Making Corey Robin’s point for him.”
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“As you must know, Salaita’s characterization of Zionism as a form of colonialism is contested by many academics who are experts on the subject matter.”
That you think that an argument being contested in academia is a sign of its demerits speaks volumes about your understanding of academia. And argument, frankly. This was the point of my post. Thank you for confirming it.
On Sun, Sep 7, 2014 at 6:47 PM, Corey Robin wrote:
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Hah, we posted our comments at the same time. Jinx.
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You both are missing my point. I’m asking if the academics who evaluated Salaita’s dissertation have expertise in half the subject matter: Zionism and Israel-Palestine. If not, that’s far more disturbing than the non-experts opining on Salaita’s work in blogs and lay media sources.
I’m aware that opinions can be contested and still be valid.
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“I’m asking if the academics who evaluated Salaita’s dissertation have expertise in half the subject matter: Zionism and Israel-Palestine.”
Oh dear, every time you speak, you just dig yourself in deeper. Here are the subjects of the dissertations I am currently advising: 1) conceptions of time and identity in recent Christian evangelical thought; 2) the political theory and political theology of Joseph Smith; 3) ideas of authenticity in Arendt, Thoreau, and Rousseau; 4) ideas of freedom and nationalism in the thought of Leo Strauss. And here are the subjects of two dissertations I just supervised to a successful completion in August: 1) the idea of the monster in Western political theory and the films of George Romero; and 2) the three modes of prophetic rhetoric in American political thought.
Do you really think I’m an expert on each and every one of these topics? Is that seriously your understanding of how academia works?
Thank you, again, for making my point for me.-
Corey, you are making my point too! You criticize Liel Liebovitz, whom you describe as a “professor of video games,” for critiquing Salaita’s academic work when Salaita’s dissertation was approved by professors who may also be non-experts on Zionism/Israel/Palestine.
You are partially correct when you say that I don’t understand academia – I’m quite familiar with math/science academia, but I’m not so familiar with humanities academia. Math/science professors are almost always experts in the subjects of their students’ dissertations, so I find it surprising that humanities students can apparently earn PhDs without having their work evaluated by experts in the subject matter of their dissertation.
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“And here are the subjects of two dissertations I just supervised to a successful completion in August: 1) the idea of the monster in Western political theory and the films of George Romero; and 2) the three modes of prophetic rhetoric in American political thought.”
Speaking as a Black filmmaker — I’d really like to read that George Romero thesis!
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You both are missing my point
No, we just find it foolish.
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Hah, we posted our comments at the same time. Jinx
[not allowed to say anything]
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There you go again: “You criticize Liel Liebovitz, whom you describe as a ‘professor of video games,’ for critiquing Salaita’s academic work.”
No, try again. I don’t think he did critique Salaita’s academic work; he merely engaged in a drive-by shooting inspired by nothing more than a desire to get him.
My point about him being a professor of video games is that anyone inspired by a similar animus could easily make fun of his topic. As I’m sure you would do if he were speaking out against Israel.
On Sun, Sep 7, 2014 at 7:40 PM, Corey Robin wrote:
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Plus, Liel Leibovitz wrote a book that is described as follows by its publisher:
“Americans and Israelis have often thought that their nations were chosen, in perpetuity, to do God’s work. This belief in divine election is a potent, living force…”
http://books.simonandschuster.com/Chosen-Peoples/Todd-Gitlin/9781439132364#sthash.F2iICTTN.dpufThis is quite similar to the subject of Salaita’s thesis! In fact, it may even be the case that Leibovitz has more expertise on the Zionism/Israel/Palestine half of Salaita’s dissertation than any of the professors signing off on it.
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Wait, are you now saying that someone who’s written a book on a topic is an expert on a topic and thus qualified to talk about that topic? Because, you know, one thing Steven Salaita has done is to write a book (several, actually) on a topic.
On Sun, Sep 7, 2014 at 7:55 PM, Corey Robin wrote:
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In a blog post called “Academic Mores and Manners in the Salaita affair, Corey notes: “First, it takes a long time to familiarize yourself with a literature and a field, to understand its debates, its ins and outs.”
It is truly a shame that Salaita, a man who took this time to be familiar with the Palestinian argument, copped out on Twitter when trying to argue his point.
Mores and manners matter – even on Twitter…. NOT just when analyzing the works of someone who has emulated Ann Coulter in using language to inflame and provoke the crowds. Every time an academic hits “post” on social media – the words are published to a very broad audience. I hate to see academics stoop to the level of the Fox News crowd. A protected right of the academic, I realize….
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In due time, I think, many of those attacking Salaita will live the truth of Teresa Nielsen Hayden’s observation that “Just because you’re on their side doesn’t mean they’re on yours.”
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I would consider it a professional more within academia that, when a scholar chooses to engage the public on their chosen expertise, they should do their best to present as full and complete a picture of the relevant facts as possible–otherwise they become a propagandist for whatever side they argue. Reading Israel’s Dead Soul, Salaita omits many important facts that would make the pro-Israel side of the debate legible to a layman; namely, that Hamas in its founding documents is dedicated to Jewish extermination and implacable bellicosity until that goal is achieved. At the very least, he severely miscarried his academic duty, at worst he served as a propagandist for genocide. I don’t think such a person has a place in the academy, and it would be right for the trustees to remind the faculty of that.
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Leaving aside that this destroys the possibility of advocacy against genuine evils…why would you consider this a norm or a widely desired goal? When has it ever been anything like a description of what scholars participating in public life actually do?
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I find the same to be true of recent histories sympathetic of the abolitionist movement. They often overlook the unsightly aspects of negroid behavior and ideology, thereby discounting the legitimate fears of Southern agrarian capitalists. What’s even worse is that some of the earliest histories of the abolitionist movement are even more one-sided in their defense of abolitionism–even criticizing the Union for not being wholly principled in its opposition to slavery. I’m now skeptical about the entire issue.
Also, I’ve noticed that lots of studies of medieval anti-Judaism don’t stop to consider the fact that the Jews did in fact kill Christ. And if they killed Christ, then perhaps it’s right to fear that they might kill Christian children more generally. Plus, they really did at times engage in less than above board money-lending. Granted, they also had to wear yellow ribbons, were ghettoized into separate communities, and so forth, but it’s not hard to see that the Christians only wanted to keep Christendom Christian, after all. (Fool me once, shame on me; fool me twice, shame on me.)
And don’t get me started about the labor movement and it’s scholarship! I mean, some of these people were Marxists! Crazy.
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You described Salaita’s critics as a “professor of video games” and an editor of “a book on presidential doodles.” Was this not an attempt to invalidate their critiques of Salaita’s work? Why not rebut their actual critiques of Salaita? You characterize their critiques as a “drive-by shooting inspired by nothing more than a desire to get him.” Interesting, b/c that’s not too far off from how many of us would describe Salaita’s critiques of Israel.
And, I didn’t say Liel is an expert on Israel-Palestine. I said he appears to have more expertise on that half of Salaita’s thesis than the professors who signed off on it. And I previously referred to Salaita as an “expert” on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on your very blog:
https://coreyrobin.com/2014/08/08/what-exactly-did-steven-salaita-mean-by-that-tweet/#comment-64039 -
I don’t seen how “this destroy the possibility of advocacy against genuine evils”
A scholar engaging the public at evolution, for example, can present a one sided portrait, because doing so doesn’t omit important facts.
There is a work of Nazi propaganda entitled “The German People Want Work and Peace” What makes it a piece of propaganda? Surely it was factual accurate to say that most German people wanted work and peace. Yet the author omit the fact that the German political leadership desired war and expansion. Similarly, no doubt the Palestinian people in Gaza desire work and peace. But equally, there can be no doubt of the intentions of their political leadership. It’s a gross breach of the trust that readers put in experts trained in the academy to portray the situation as otherwise.
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I’m not defending character assassination of Salaita, which this most certainly is. Truth be told, outside of this blog, the whole affair is so far out of the circles I run in that I’d never hear about it otherwise. I sympathize with someone getting sacked for a few comments on Twitter and find the treatment of Palestinians shameful, but that’s about as involved as I get.
However, on a theoretical level expertise usually tends to be on the side of a power and has plenty of reactionary character itself. At it’s worst it’s just a game of “only people have have been to these elite institutions or received sufficient education are allowed to talk. Everyone else is too ignorant to open his/her mouth.” I’m not accusing you of this, but at least be aware that power does not necessarily reside on the side of ignorance. Who defines what expertise is, which texts are canonical, which things to say, and which answers are the right ones? That’s the game which is being played. Yet how does one abandon this without descending into full on nihilism? Power and knowledge aren’t really so separate.
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Nurit: “You described Salaita’s critics as a ‘professor of video games’ and an editor of ‘a book on presidential doodles.’ Was this not an attempt to invalidate their critiques of Salaita’s work?”
Sigh.
Here is what I wrote: “You would think the fact that one of the progenitors of these attacks on Salaita is a professor of video games—or in the past, that one of the mocking critics of the ASA and its boycott edited a book on presidential doodles—would give these critics pause. Would make them wonder whether or not their research, which I have no reason to doubt is anything less than outstanding, could not be painted in an equally preposterous light.”
First, minor reading error. Only one of Salaita’s critics was described this way; the other was described as an opponent of the ASA and its boycott vote.
Second, if you read the last sentence of what I wrote — “would make them wonder…could not be painted in an equally preposterous light” — it’s more than clear that the reason I invoke their research is to show that what critics are trying to do to Salaita (and to the ASA before that) could very easily be done to them: that is, make their research look ridiculous, even though, as I acknowledge, I have no reason to think their research is anything less than outstanding.
Do you see why it’s getting harder and harder to take you seriously as an interlocutor, much less as a critic of Salaita’s work? If you can’t be depended upon to understand the most basic sentences on this blog — which is plain for everyone here to see — why should any of us trust you when you report on the alleged sins of Salaita’s scholarship? You seem like an unreliable narrator.-
Corey, you are free to judge me as you choose. I acknowledge that I misread the part about the presidential doodles book editor, though I don’t think your sentence was clearly written either. My comments focused on your remark about Salaita’s critics not having a “background or demonstrated record in Salaita’s field” and your description of Liel as a “professor of video games,” which I maintain was intended to invalidate his critique of Salaita without substantively addressing it.
Is David Greenberg the “presidential doodles” opponent of the ASA Israel boycott? I had to google to determine to whom you’re referring, and he appears to be a minor figure as far as opponents of the ASA Israel boycott go, so I remain skeptical of your intentions in mentioning their research areas.
As for unreliable narrators, take a look at p. 5 of Salaita’s book “Israel’s Dead Soul.”
https://bamdadi.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/steven-salaita-israels-dead-soul-temple-university-press-2011.pdfI was going to say that it sounds like how Max Blumenthal presents the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict, but I see that you think Max is “genuinely interested in the truth,” so I’m afraid that the two of us have widely divergent definitions of what it means to be a “reliable narrator.”
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I think it’s extremely rude for Corey Robin to mock Liel Liebovitz’s expertise in video games; he also has a PhD in comic books.
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You described Salaita’s critics as a “professor of video games” and an editor of “a book on presidential doodles.” Was this not an attempt to invalidate their critiques of Salaita’s work?
Urf. Reading comprehension fail. He said that to point out that *almost anyone’s* scholarship could be made to seem foolish by an enemy determined to smear him.
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total900, people’s words can have more than one meaning. I never disputed the primary meaning. I drew an inference that Robin was *also* trying to discredit Salaita’s critics.
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Nurit,
Interesting and shifting rationales. Before, the issue was that none of the profs who signed off on Salaita’s thesis had “a background or demonstrated record in the history of Israel-Palestine and Zionism?” Your example of someone with that background/record is Liel Leibovitz, where you also object that he is described as he describes himself. He says on his website that he focuses “primarily on video game and interactive media research and theory. His advisor was Todd Gitlin, and if I recall he also worked with John Pemberton and Michael Taussig. None of them are experts in video game theory.
You are right that Liebovitz has a book with Gitlin comparing Israel and the United States. But that gives you another problem. Liebovitz was not trained in that at all (unless spending time in the IDF counts). In fact, in the book he and Gitlin write in so many words that neither is an expert on the subject (“we are well aware that we are meddlers and not experts – not theologians, not credentialed historians of either nation” – p xvii). But they decided to do the study anyway. They didn’t publish it with an academic press though, so it probably did not go through peer review.
The thing is, one can play these games all day. Gitlin is a prof of communications, which means he should know a lot about technology and culture. But he’s no expert in the specifics. The others are anthropologists. You can look them up. And you know what? This just does not matter. They know how to do research, to develop findings, that sort of thing. If Gitlin and Liebovitz hit it off, and Gitlin could help him to do the work, good for them (whether it has made a splash or no – the video game work has yet to be cited at all, so not much splash there). If they want to try to say something about Israel and the US, fine. Let the people in the field see if they think that a couple of outsiders’ take on the issues is actually helpful.
Robin’s point is right. We have a system that does put people who do have expertise in a position to decide. I don’t know who the peers that read Salaita’s work are, but given where it is published you can be absolutely certain that it has been through peer reviewers who do have expertise and Israel/Palestine. The fact is, they decided it was up to snuff. And you think that with your bad google-fu you can find a hole in that? You can’t even keep a straight line of reasoning through one comment thread.
It is not just normal that students do things that are different to what their advisor does. It is essential. If our students were only allowed to do what we do, all fields would be be pretty damn sterile. The crossfertilization comes exactly because the student brings some work and ideas of his or her own to the table. Whether or not that work is any good is then judged by people besides the student’s committee in peer review when they try to publish. It’s not that complicated. It’s not a perfect system. But it’s a lot better than ignorant internet sleuthing.
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This whole topic is a red herring in any case. It has been brought forward to shift the argument from focusing on the illegal dehiring of Salaita to focusing on the (immaterial) question of Salaita’s scholarship.
It is rather like the unsightly affair in Missouri, where two days after the police shot an unarmed black teenager we were all debating the morals of the teenager himself–who listened to rap music, and stole cigarillos–instead of asking why the police can shoot an unarmed man with no consequence.
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total900, people’s words can have more than one meaning. I never disputed the primary meaning. I drew an inference that Robin was *also* trying to discredit Salaita’s critics.
“Even though Corey Robin *explicitly* said that’s not what he meant, and the primary idea is *exactly* opposite, I’m nonetheless going to read this meaning into it so I can score rhetorical points.”
Next up: Nurit Baytch explains why Orwell’s _1984_ is in support of totalitarianism.
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Shorter Nurit: “I acknowledge that I misread your sentence. But that was your fault.”
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Why does Salaita get to be uncivil to others and not only gets a pass but gets a gaggle of defenders, but when some scholars and others decide, precisely because his uncivil public comments made them pay attention to his work, to consider his work more carefully, they are uncivil for criticizing it?
The first object of derision in this discussion should be Salaita.
Also, let’s be honest. Salaita’s uncivil writings target Israel and people who are Israelis or support Israel. His uncivil drive-by attacks are far worse than whatever Robin accuses Salaita’s critics of doing because, as his book reviews demonstrate, he sometimes doesn’t even bother to read them but simply writes a negative review that is almost certainly predicated on the person’s background or politics.
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Here’s a translation of bor-ese for those who are not familiar with her/his use of language.
1. “some scholars and others” = Zionist propagandists
2. “consider his work more carefully” = beg the question in their own favor
3. “object of derision” = anybody who draws attention to Israel’s war crimes
4. “let’s be honest” = let’s all adopt the worldview of David Bernstein
5. “uncivil drive-by attacks” = goodreads critical of Israel
6. “almost certainly predicated on the person’s
background and politics” = bad iff inconsistent with
‘honesty’–i.e. #4 above. -
The thing is, bor-bor, I don’t have to “defend” anything written by Salaita to call you out as the hack you are. You’re just not that good at what you do. Read some more Luntz and come back when you’re a bit more practiced.
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That you are writing as someone who defends Salaita’s tweets, reviews, the article he submitted as part of his application to UIUC and his book Israel’s Dead Soul, I would venture to say that your ability to serve as my translator is handicapped.
But, please, do continue to defend the indefensible. It undermines Salaita every time.
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I know you don’t realize what you don’t realize, and I’m not going to be the one to enlighten you, but thanks for the laugh.
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“That some academics, who have no background or demonstrated record in Salaita’s field (indeed, can’t even bother to figure out what his field of expertise actually is), think they can now just hunt around his books and articles in order to draw fatal conclusions about his talents shows a profound disrespect for our collective enterprise. Indeed, a profound disrespect for themselves.”
Let’s grant for argument’s sake that this is true: “those hunting around Salaita’s published work *in order to draw fatal conclusions* should a profound disrespect for our collective enterprise.”
Even so, what you’ve written sidesteps an important question. What about people who examine Salaita’s work not in order to draw fatal conclusions, but from genuine curiosity about whether it meets what they take to be widely accepted norms of scholarship? Examples of such norms might include being sensitive to possible objections to one’s arguments, being appropriately critical of the sources one cites in support of one’s positions, and being accurate in one’s representation of opposing views.
What if such a reader—who, we might imagine, has served on numerous college-level tenure committees—concludes that Salaita’s work falls short in these regards?
Do you think that such an assessment can simply be dismissed a priori, on the grounds that the imagined reader isn’t an expert in Salaita’s field? Or do you think that the merits of such an assessment may well depend on the specific contents of what the reader finds in Salaita’s work?
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[I was typing quickly: “…should a profound disregard” should have been “show a profound disrespect.”]
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“Even so, what you’ve written sidesteps an important question. What about people who examine Salaita’s work not in order to draw fatal conclusions, but from genuine curiosity about whether it meets what they take to be widely accepted norms of scholarship? Examples of such norms might include being sensitive to possible objections to one’s arguments, being appropriately critical of the sources one cites in support of one’s positions, and being accurate in one’s representation of opposing views.”
Here is a thought experiment/homework assignment: find us a legitimate critic of Salaita’s work whose own intellectual output meets this exacting standard precisely when doing the very work of analyzing Salaita’s scholarship.
I will happily read that author.
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Perhaps you didn’t finish reading my post. I’ll repeat the question it posed:
“Do you think that such an assessment can simply be dismissed a priori, on the grounds that the imagined reader isn’t an expert in Salaita’s field? Or do you think that the merits of such an assessment may well depend on the specific contents of what the reader finds in Salaita’s work?”
My previous post provides the context for the question. To be clear, the question was addressed to the blog’s author. That said, I certainly welcome other perspectives as well, provided that they actually engage the question.
I said that a certain question had been sidestepped. My posing that question was intended to give Corey Robin the opportunity to further clarify his expressed view. Your reply again managed to evade that question, something that I hope you’ll recognize on reflection.
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Wrong.
My reply is a request that you present us with someone who meets that standard, and thus does not “have a dog in that fight”. I recognize upon reflection that I read you quite correctly.
I am without doubt that analysts of Salaita abound, intellectuals who care about clarity and intellectual rigor.
My point is that those critics ARE NOT featured in the present debate, they are not called upon to defend the actions of UIUC. They are nowhere to be seen. This matter is not about Salaita’s scholarship — he’s already proven his abilities. This is about the cowardly behavior of a University that fires a newly-hired tenured professor because of pressure from donors and from AIPAC style intervention into the hiring decisions of the University’s administration. A firing done not because of what the professor has done (no charges brought, no crimes found/alleged, no fraudulent scholarship, no plagiarisms) but because of pungent comments (and they are NOT anti-Semitic) that he wrote on Twitter, for G-d’s sake.
The issue is POLITICS and not Salaita’s scholarship.
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Nope. It’s clear that you misread again. I’ll try to explain the question once more, but if you still don’t get it, you should probably let someone else try to answer.
In terms of reading comprehension, it should be clear that I haven’t said anything at all about the assessments of Salaita’s work that have emerged so far, except to *grant for argument’s sake* that Corey Robin is *right* about them.
My hypothesis is that some academics will now be curious enough about Salaita’s work to want to examine it carefully, but—since careful examinations take time, and since people have other commitments—we may have to wait a while before a significant number of such reviews are available.
My question, *once again*, is about how strong a claim Corey Robin is making in the passage I quoted. (Since this is a question about what *he* intended, *he* may be the only one who can definitively answer it, though others can certainly have views about what should be said on the matter, or speculations about what he meant or would say).
Maybe this formulation will help to forestall yet another misreading:
Does Corey Robin believe that scholars in other humanities fields (including scholars who have served on college-level tenure committees) have no business reviewing Salaita’s published work with a view to assessing its scholarly merits for themselves, in light of the same standards they apply elsewhere?
Or, to put it another way, if Corey Robin learned that such a scholar was about to devote time to this endeavor, out of genuine curiosity, would Corey Robin try to “wave him/her away”? Would he argue that such an undertaking was misguided, simply because relatively few outside Salaita’s discipline could gain sufficient mastery of the complex arguments to reach even a presumptively reliable assessment?
Or does Corey Robin object *only* to examining Salaita’s work by those whose agenda is to discredit it? How strong a claim is being made? This is, of course, a question about the implicit principles on which his position rests.