SUNAINA MAIRA
BOYCOTT / “The Academy and Justice for Palestine”
Hosted by Vylma V
Tuesday March 20, 7:30pm
Hillside Club
2286 Cedar St
Berkeley
tickets:
$12 advance tickets: brownpapertickets.com T:800.838.3006, or Books Inc. (Berkeley), or Pegasus Books (3 shops), or Moe’s, or Mrs. Dalloway’s, or Walden Pond Bookstore
$15 door, KPFA benefit
Information: kpfa.org/events Co-sponsored by MECA.
tickets:
$20 for one admission ; $38 for one + book; $48 for two plus book. brownpapertickets.com T:800.838.3006, or East Bay Books, or Books Inc. (Berkeley), or Pegasus Books (3 shops), or Moe’s, or Mrs. Dalloway’s, or Walden Pond Bookstore
KPFA benefit
Information: kpfa.org/events
“Sunaina Maira offers a definitive account of the growing social justice movement called BDS in the United States. With erudition and inspiration, she shows what can be achieved when we confront entrenched norms and imperial formations.”
— Alex Lubin, author of Geographies of Liberation: The Making of an Afro-Arab Political Imaginary
The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement (BDS) has expanded rapidly though controversially in the United States in the past five years. The academic boycott of Israeli academic institutions is a key component of that movement. What is this boycott? Why does it make sense? Why is this an American Studies issue? These key questions and many others are answered in this short essential book. Boycott! situates the academic boycott in the broader history of boycotts in the United States as well as Palestine and shows how it has evolved into a transnational social movement that has spurred profound intellectual and political shifts. It explores the movement’s implications for antiracist, feminist, queer, and academic labor organizing, and examines the boycott in the context of debates about Palestine, Zionism, race, rights-based politics, academic freedom, decolonization, and neoliberal capitalism.
“For many years, Sunaina Maira has been a leader in the BDS movement, where she is greatly respected for her kindness, insight, maturity, and devotion. These same qualities can be found in her scholarship, as this book shows. Her deep knowledge of BDS and her ability to effectively contextualize the movement amid its forebears and contemporaries combine to produce a richly argued, highly persuasive text. Anybody claiming to be interested in justice needs to read this.”
—Steven Salaita,, author of Uncivil Rites: Palestine and the Loimits of Academic Freedom
In deftly demonstrating that Palestinian solidarity belongs at the center of all our justice concerns, Boycott! both exemplifies the challenge of this moment and urges us to fearlessly rise up to it”
— Angela Davis, Distinguished Professor Emerita, U.C. Santa Cruz
Sunaina Maira is Professor of Asian American Studies at the University of California, Davis.
Vylma V is a Puerto Rican activist, human rights attorney, and former deputy public defender in Santa Clara County. On KPFA Radio, she is the DJ for the Music Show, Ritmo (2nd Saturdays), a frequent sub for The Talkies, and a La Raza Chronicles’ producer. She is also the executive producer of Goddess on the Radio, a feminist spirituality program which airs on KPFB 89.3 every Saturday at 2pm and celebrates women.
