BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//Date iCal//NONSGML kigkonsult.se iCalcreator 2.20.2// METHOD:PUBLISH BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:America/Toronto BEGIN:STANDARD DTSTART:20241103T020000 TZOFFSETFROM:-0400 TZOFFSETTO:-0500 TZNAME:EST END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT DTSTART:20240310T020000 TZOFFSETFROM:-0500 TZOFFSETTO:-0400 RDATE:20250309T020000 TZNAME:EDT END:DAYLIGHT END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT UID:calendar.3424.events_uoft_date.0@www.religion.utoronto.ca CREATED:20240913T183353Z DESCRIPTION:\nWhen and Where: \nWednesday, September 25, 2024 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm \n JHB 318 \n Jackman Humanities Building \n 170 St George Street\ , Toronto ON M5R 2M8 \n\nSpeakers \nSchirin Amir-Moazami (Institute of Isl amic Studies, Freie Universität Berlin) \n\nDescription: \nIn a speech at the Knesset in 2008 on the occasion of the 60s anniversary of the foundin g of the state of Israel, then chancellor Angela Merkel spelled out publi cly what had unofficially turned into a doctrine since the late 1950s in p ost-war Western Germany: “Every federal government and every chancellor be fore me was committed to Germany’s special historical responsibility for I srael’s security. This historical responsibility is part of my country’s r eason of state. For me as German Chancellor, therefore, Israel’s securit y will never be open to negotiation.”Ever since, political authorities ac ross almost all political spectra have not missed any opportunity to reite rate their commitment to the Staatsräson (reason of state). On the level o f foreign policy, the long-established military cooperation with Israel h ave been continuously intensified, diplomatic relations as well as educat ional and academic partnerships have gradually amplified (Asseburg and Bus se 2011; Marwecki 2024: chap. 4).  In the fall of 2023, following the at tacks of Hamas in the South of Israel, most political authorities repeate d that “Israel and its security” will remain “German Staatsräson and a lei tmotiv for our actions.” Numerous actors ranging from journalists to repre sentatives of the German-Israeli Society to those of academic institutions joined the chorus and emphasized that it was time to translate the Staats räson into “tangible action”. This announcement has contributed to tempora rily suspend existing basic laws such as freedom of assembly, freedom of speech or academic freedom, to overlook international law like the variou s decisions by the International Court of Justice on the plausibility of g enocide committed by Israel, or to create new laws (Traverso 2024), like the required confession of “Israel’s right to existence” for candidates a pplying to German nationality.In its unconditional, indefinite promise to Israel’s security, Germany’s Staatsräson has not only been complicit wit h the destruction of Gaza, expulsions and mass killings of Palestinians, legitimized as “self-defense” or as the “war against Hamas”. It has also contributed to unleash and sustain far-reaching security measures and tech nologies of surveillance on the domestic level, including the control of knowledge production and circulation. In this paper I will analyze the Sta atsräson as a security dispositive while paying particular attention at it s implications for the securitization of knowledge production. I will unfo ld three interrelated arguments.First, as a way of thinking and acting th at is oriented at the “absolute value of the state and the idea of soverei gn state power” (Rumpf 1980: 174) the Staatsräson enables the state to exe mpt from the rule of law at any time, if the security is considered at ri sk (Rumpf 1980; Michaels 2023). Even if by definition based on the virtue of reflexive reasoning, the Staatsräson can therefore turn into a repres sive instrument that is first and foremost based in the interests of the ( nation) state – or of another state for that matter.Second, it is precise ly because of its extra-legal character and its vagueness that the Staatsr äson has triggered technologies of securitization which are first and fore most based on the menace of sanction and preventive repression. Because li beral freedoms are simultaneously praised, internal rebuke and public def amation have been the most common ways to delegitimize certain scholars or to discredit entire scholarships – like postcolonial studies – as complic it with “anti-Semitism”.The weaponization of (Israel related) “anti-Semiti sm” reveals intimate connections to the “war against terror”, which has c yclically deployed its racializing logics since 9/11. Not everybody is thu s equally targeted through the reason of state and its security apparatus. Arab, Muslim and especially Palestinian scholars and students are consid ered particularly suspicious. In a third step, I therefore argue that the securitization of knowledge and its surveilling practice are neither unpr ecedented nor merely effected by the particular Staatsräson of Israel’s se curity. Instead, they are animated by an epistemic order whose roots are colonial. \n\nSponsors \nUniversity of Toronto Institute of Islamic Studie s \n170 St George Street, Toronto ON M5R 2M8 \n\nCategories \n Workshop \n\nAudiences \n U of T CommunityGraduate StudentsUndergraduate Students DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20240925T140000 DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20240925T160000 LAST-MODIFIED:20240913T183353Z LOCATION:170 St George Street, Toronto ON M5R 2M8 SUMMARY:“Reason of State” and the Securitization of Knowledge Production on Palestine/Israel in Germany URL;TYPE=URI:https://www.religion.utoronto.ca/events/%E2%80%9Creason-state% E2%80%9D-and-securitization-knowledge-production-palestineisrael-germany END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR