I’ll be moderating this event, which takes place Saturday, September 19, 1-3 pm in Princeton. It’s a conversation with four of the ten activists who helped shut down Port Elizabeth, New Jersey this past May 22 to stop the shipment through the port of weapons to Israel.
Scan the QR code on the flyer to register. Confirmed attendees will receive the location of the venue, which by request of the venue is only to be divulged to confirmed attendees. You can also use this link.
I’ve been re-reading Nabokov’s Lolita in preparation for a “class” I’m “teaching” on it–more precisely, a seminar I’m leading on it –this October, so you’re periodically going to see some posts here on Lolita amidst the usual cheerful fare on war, ethnic cleansing, and mass deportation. It’s tempting to think that as a “book on pedophilia,” Lolita is continuous with all that, but it is and isn’t. It’s a book about pedophilia, and it isn’t. It serves as a depiction of naked evil (so to speak), and it doesn’t. It’s hard to capture what it is and does except by experiencing it.
Continue readingI‘VE JUST GOTTEN WORD THAT THE COURT HAS, WITH LESS THAN 24 HOURS’ NOTICE, CANCELED TOMORROW’S TRIAL FOR THE SECOND TIME. APPARENTLY, A JUDGE AND PROSECUTOR COULD NOT BE AVAILABLE TOMORROW. THERE IS, TO MY KNOWLEDGE, NO RE-SCHEDULED DATE.
–Irfan Khawaja, August 4, 6 pm.
Port Elizabeth 4 Face Trial for Blocking the Shipment of Weapons to Israel’s Genocide
Press Contacts: Mary Anne Grady Flores, gradyflores08@gmail.com (607)-280-8797
Haqq Sankara, haqqsankara@tuta.com (interviews available)
August 5; press conference: 9:30 am; trial scheduled to begin 10 am (CANCELED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE)
1 Police Plaza
Elizabeth Municipal Court
Elizabeth, New Jersey 07201
July 30th. Four activists known as the Port Elizabeth 4, face trial on Wednesday, August 5th at 10 am at 1 Police Plaza, Elizabeth, NJ (press conference at 9:30 am) for blocking the main roadway to the Port of Elizabeth on October 3, 2025. They were part of an autonomous coalition of 100 protestors who stopped trucks delivering military cargo to the Port of Elizabeth bound for Israel on the Maersk Sentosa vessel. By August 5th, the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza will have gone on for 1,028 days, beyond three years.
Continue readingAfter I lost my academic job back in 2020, I wondered if I’d ever teach again. Part of me wanted to; part of me didn’t. And with the passage of time, part wondered whether I still even knew how to teach. Is teaching like riding a bike? Or like remembering an old password? Or like getting married for the nth time?
Continue readingYou’re invited to our 2026 Reunions Event: Terms of Repression
Join us for a panel discussion with Dr. Sadaf Jaffer, Aditi Rao, and a student (now alum) participant in the 2024 encampment and expert on Princeton’s complicity in war crimes. Moderated by Irfan Khawaja ‘91.
What types of repression have students and faculty been facing since the 2024 encampment? How do the University’s actions towards Palestine activists square with President Eisgruber’s new book on campus speech policies, Terms of Respect? Where does the divestment movement stand, and where do we go from here?
When: Saturday, May 23th, 11:30am – 1:30pm. Panel discussion and mingling to follow. There will be food for purchase.
Where: in town, very close to campus – exact location will be shared with confirmed attendees. RSVP here.
–PRINCETON ALUMNI FOR PALESTINE
Converge on Princeton: Reunions, May 21-24
I’ve been making the case to pro-Palestine activists wherever I go: the experience of being shut down at LeMoyne, NYU, U of Texas at Dallas, and Rutgers (with the prospect of retaliation at Michigan) and elsewhere is certainly a dispiriting one, but the answer is not to keep demanding entry where entry has effectively been denied, but to find opportunities for visibility when and where they present themselves. Continue reading
I just created a new Activist Interviews page to house the Activist Interviews series I began this past January. I’ve so far only posted one interview, the one I did with Emanuelle Sippy of Princeton University’s Alliance of Jewish Progressives. Forthcoming interviewees include Sireen Sawalha, Sadaf Jaffer, Aditi Rao, Ana Paola Pazmiño, various participants in Princeton’s Gaza Solidarity Encampment, and many more. Stay tuned.
Sponsored by Resistencia en Acción, Princeton, New Jersey
All three bills of the Immigrant Protection Package (previously the Immigrant Trust Act) have passed both houses of the New Jersey State Legislature, and now await the signature of the governor, which it’s presumed he’ll give (here’s Politico, New Jersey Monitor). In addition, adoption of the so-called IHRA definition of anti-Semitism has been thwarted, meaning that the bill to codify the definition did not advance to a vote. Continue reading
EDITED to change the order of presenters:
EDITED AGAIN to change a couple of references to “December” to “January.”
EDITED YET AGAIN to update location: We’re in Laurel B at 2:00, and Laurel C at 4:00. So, different rooms, but the least bad case of different rooms. On the 3rd floor (escalators will take ya; 2nd floor is registration btw), tucked away past the Harborside rooms.
The Molinari Society will be holding its mostly-annual Eastern Symposium in conjunction with the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association in Baltimore, 7-10 January 2026.
Our symposium comprises two back-to-back sessions on Wednesday afternoon (both in the same room, we hope!). Here’s the schedule info:
Molinari Society symposium: Topics in Radical Liberalism
Session 1:
G2D. Wednesday, 7 January, 2:00-3:50 p.m., Baltimore Marriott Waterfront, 700 Aliceanna St., Baltimore MD 21202.
chair: Roderick T. Long (Auburn University)
speakers:
Irfan Khawaja (Independent Scholar), “Academia’s Complicit Executioners: A Critique of the Kalven Committee Report”
Zachary Woodman (Western Michigan University), “Extended Cognition as Property Acquisition”
Session 2:
G3D. Wednesday, 7 January, 4:00-5:50 p.m., Baltimore Marriott Waterfront, 700 Aliceanna St., Baltimore MD 21202.
chair: Roderick T. Long (Auburn University)
speakers:
Cory Massimino (Center for a Stateless Society), “A Liberal Socialism Must Also Be Left Market Anarchist”
Jason Lee Byas (Georgetown Institute for the Study of Markets and Ethics) “Distributed Justice: Can We Make Sense of Justice Outside the State?”
Policy of Truth 