The website and group blog of Irfan Khawaja
Originally published at the History News Network, March 15, 2004. The letters section of The New York Review of Books for February 12, 2004 contains a heated exchange between Bernard-Henry Levy, author of Who Killed Daniel Pearl? (2003) and William Dalrymple, who reviewed Levy s book in the December 4 issue of the NYRB (“Murder in Karachi”). As it happens, I have [ ]
Statement to Mayor Municipal Council of Princeton400 Witherspoon St., Princeton, New JerseyAugust 10, 2026 Almost exactly a year ago today, the Mayor and Council unanimously passed resolution R-25-275, a resolution supporting passage of what was then called the Immigrant Trust Act. Among other things, the resolution called on other municipalities to join with Princeton [ ]
Further Reflections on the Jason Arday Case My post on the Jason Arday controversy, “Black Plagiarism Matters,” has gotten more-than-usual traffic for posts at this blog, much of it via Roderick Long’s Facebook page (thanks, Roderick), where there’s an extensive discussion of the post, much of it admittedly point-missing and pointless. One common criticism I’ve [ ]
A bunch of us had a contentious discussion the other day about institutional neutrality, apropos of my then-upcoming talk about it at the Heterodox Academy conference. One topic that came up was how institutional neutrality relates to curricular decisions. Is there an institutionally neutral way of deciding, say, whether a given topic or discipline merits [ ]
Jesus did get in the way of empire Mary Anne Grady Flores, Ithaca Catholic Workers Movement As I ve mentioned here a few times (May 26, May 28, July 1), I support the direct-action activist effort to block weapons shipments from the United States to Israel. These shipments conscript our complicity in Israeli aggression, occupation, and war [ ]
One of the biggest higher ed stories out there right now is the Jason Arday plagiarism case. The New York Times has run two articles on it in the last two days, the Guardian is running with it, the Times of London is pushing it, and then there s Tech Times, Times Higher Education, The Telegraph [ ]
Back in February 2025, I wrote a post here in which I took issue with the trend among physicians of objecting to the use of the word “provider” for physician. Physicians object to that term because they find the “provider” terminology disrespectful and status-diminishing, but my claim was that the objection is itself just an [ ]
I wrote the post below the line back in April, but got pulled into other things, and never posted it. But I feel pretty vindicated: since late March, the Times s narrative has turned 180 degrees. In March, they were quoting officials quite sure that Iran s leadership was too fractured to act in a unified way. [ ]
I 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 [ ]
Since my first post here on institutional neutrality in 2025, Heterodox Academy has, predictably, re-affirmed its commitment to the doctrine by way of the same tired arguments for it, and done its fair share of bragging about the latest institutions to have signed on to it. For all their talk about viewpoint diversity and the [ ]