Instructors denounce the Trump administration’s “anti-intellectualism,” support collective property, and more
A professor at the University of Utah explained in a conference on Tuesday that” colonial anxiety” causes “distress” for “marginalized” individuals, while “anti-intellectualism” fueled by President Donald Trump’s administration reduces opposition.
Two Ghent University professors also criticized Israel’s pronatalist plans for excluding Palestinians during the feminist conference.
The University of California, Berkeley hosted the event titled” Bridging Decolonial Feminist and Queer Theory, and Materialist Feminist Theory.”
” Colonial dysphoria” is the “profound dislocation and problems experienced by marginalized people, particularly minoritized groups, due to colonial histories that form names and experience within colonial colleges,” according to University of Utah Professor Omi Salas-SantaCruz.
The transgender-identifying doctor criticized universities for continuing to have “deep strength imbalances and imperial attitudes” despite efforts to promote a more inclusive society.
Students from a variety of backgrounds feel alienated because the programs don’t reveal their activities, and they are “exhausted” from having to explain who they are and their narratives to others, according to Salas-SantaCruz.
Anti-intellectualism and what the professor called the “war on woke” are additional factors exacerbating” imperial anxiety.”
The professor claimed that “anti-intellectualism is a growing power affecting intellectual life, which is manifested by skepticism toward experts or a preference for a’common sense ‘ over research.
” During the first Trump presidency in the United States, when disdain for academics and the development of “alternative facts” started to dominate the social discourse,” Salas-SantaCruz said.
Salas-SantaCruz added that studies in the U.S. show that people who disapprove of experts “are most likely to support right-wing rulers.”
This attitude “reflects a wider refusal of subtle fellowship in favor of comforting narratives for populations in energy,” the professor said. It has also led to a backlash against intellectual fields like gender studies, which have been distorted and banned in some states.
According to Salas-SantaCruz,” those fighting bigotry are called prejudiced, and those promoting participation are labeled as intolerant” in this “war on woke.”
The doctor claimed that “it’s a rhetorical onslaught that aims to arouse people’s fears of equity and important thinking.”
According to Salas-SantaCruz,” cracking down on education… good fair for a lot of people,” while portraying “woke” professors as” corrupting youth and shaming society, particularly light society.”
Soraya El Kahlaoui, a postdoctoral fellow at Ghent University, suggested a “feminist theorization of house… that moves beyond the narrow walls of bourgeois personal house” in continuation of the webinar’s investigation of imbalances.
She urged the “right to posses” movement, which “refuses the inherent struggles of marginalized communities to defend the legitimacy of their hybrid properties,” by straddling Marxist ideas.
It “refuses to resonate with feminist indigenous perspectives,” according to Kahlaoui, who views land as a nurturing entity with spiritual significance rather than as a commodity.
Further, she said, the “right to posses” attempts to prioritize “individualistic market-based solutions” that disregard” collective and communal forms of possession.”
Through the persistent dispossession of communities that do not fit into the contemporary definition of property, colonialism has been and is still plays a significant part in shaping state-society relations, she said.
The final speaker, Sigrid Vertommen, a professor of arts and philosophy at Ghent University, criticized Israel for being a pro-natalist nation and for having generous policies on assisted reproductive technologies like IVF, egg donation, and surrogacy.
She said,” It’s like mostly oriented toward Jewish-Israeli settler populations at the expense of Palestinian populations and at the expense of indigenous life.”
It is abundantly clear that the indigenous people of Gaza do not benefit from Israel’s pronatalist policies, she said.
She cited the 2010 egg donation policy, which effectively imposes religious segregation, as an example of which she referred to as” selective pronatalism.”
Vertommen criticized the economic impact of reproduction, claiming that Israel’s pro-natalist policies have fueled a multi-billion-dollar fertility industry and used reproductive labor to support capitalism.
MORE:” Feminist witch studies”: Professors create a new nonsense academic field
During a webinar at UC Berkeley, Professor Omi Salas-SantaCruz discusses IMAGE CAPTION AND CREDIT.
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