Prof. Dr. Agata Lisiak, Prof. Dr. Hanan Toukan, and Ina Constantin ‘26 present at conference Talking about (the Silencing of) Palestine in Frankfurt

Migration Studies professor Dr. Agata Lisiak, Middle East Studies professor Dr. Hanan Toukan, and HAST student Ina Constantin ‘26, alongside dozens of international scholars and students, traveled to Frankfurt to take part in the interdisciplinary conference Talking about (the Silencing of) Palestine. The conference aimed to “highlight the consequences of silencing academic inquiry, rendering Palestinian suffering invisible amidst what several leading human rights organizations and international courts deem a plausible case of genocide.”

Drawing on her research in transnational feminism, Lisiak’s presentation traced the different trajectories and legacies of transnational solidarity with Palestine from the 1960s to today’s global student movement. Engaging with Rosa Luxemburg’s theorization on colonialism, imperialism, militarism, and capitalism, Lisiak “explored the genealogies of feminist commitment to the steadfast affirmation of life in times of genocide, ecocide, scholasticide, femicide, and other forms of violence.”

Toukan discussed how, since the 1990s, Germany has maintained its role as a promoter of the two-state solution in Palestine and Israel at the international level through the soft power of arts and cultural funding. At the same time, “Germany has actively worked to dilute the memory of Palestinians living in its midst, in the name of the nation’s culture of atonement.” Drawing from Walter Mignolo’s “epistemological disobedience” and Jacques Rancière’s reflections on disrupting “the sayable and thinkable,” Toukan uncovered how German policy-making abroad and at home is now “being disrupted and interrogated by the very actors it has traditionally relied on to financially and morally sustain its image as a liberal and tolerant promoter of pluralism and diversity.”

Alongside two students from other Berlin universities, Constantin moderated a discussion on organizing reading and analysis groups on Palestine in participants’ respective cities. Scholars and students reflected on how they can “identify leverage points for change, and foster spaces where alternative narratives can emerge and flourish to resist cultural domination and imperial erasure.”

The conference took place in the Frankfurt offices of medico international, a human rights organization that last year hosted the BCB-organized event “Life, Death, Tragedy in Israel and Palestine” with Joshua Yaffa and Pulitzer Prize-winner Nathan Thrall.

Post Date: 02-11-2025