Mon Oct 20, 2025 4:30 PM - 6:00 PM EDT Online, YouTube
After Savagery: Gaza, Genocide, and the Illusion of Western Civilization
Join us as author Hamid Dabashi will be in conversation with Muhannad Ayyash as the two discuss Dabashi's latest book, After Savagery
As the death toll in Gaza continues to rise, what remains of the theories we use to understand our world? Join Hamid Dabashi and Dr. Muhannad Ayyash as they discuss and expose the racist roots of Western philosophy. Rather than perceiving “the West” as giving carte blanche to Israel, Dabashi insists that Israel must be understood as its quintessence.
If Israel is the West and the West is Israel, then Palestine is the world and the world is Palestine. Holding to glimmers from revolutionary works of literature and film, Dabashi argues, in grief and love, that the wretched of the earth need poetry after barbarism—and that Palestine is the site of a liberated imagination.
Speakers:
Hamid Dabashi is the Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. Among Dabashi’s recent books are On Edward Said: Remembrance of Things Past, The End of Two Illusions: Islam after the West, and Iran in Revolt: Revolutionary Aspirations in a Post-Democratic World.
Dr. Muhannad Ayyash was born and raised in Silwan, Al-Quds, before immigrating to Canada where he is a Professor of Sociology at Mount Royal University. He is also a policy analyst at Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network. He is the author of Lordship and Liberation in Palestine-Israel and A Hermeneutics of Violence, has co-edited two books, and is the author of over twenty journal articles and book chapters, and over fifty commentaries and opinion pieces.
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