Chair of the Jewish Heritage
May 3-5 2010
The Raab Building
With the conference's central theme of "Intellectuals and Terrorism": we are seeking to create a forum in which to explore "the third side of terrorism"-not the perpetrators of terror or their victims but representatives of the intellectual milieu who contribute to a cultural environment conducive to terror. The goal of the conference is to produce a comparative-typological analysis of real-life case studies and narratives, in order to develop a broad conceptual model of intellectual attitudes toward terrorism. Interest in terror and death has been exhibited by intellectuals in a range of societies, cultures, and historical periods, past and present. Bearing in mind the mass murders that resulted from death ideologies under Nazi and Communist regimes, it is necessary to examine the current situation, and to try to learn from the mistakes of the past. What happens when marginal intellectual currents become normative? What happens when the dominant academic discourse not only systematically challenges the founding principles of academia and its cultural foundations, but even incites towards radicalism and terror? Interdisciplinary in its approach, this conference encompasses the spheres of history, politics, psychology, literary criticism, and theory of culture. Participants in the conference will include key specialists in these fields from Israel and abroad, representing a variety of political and ideological stances.
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