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Thursday, March 31, 2016

Who Is Aijaz Ahmad?

UC Irvine School of Humanities is announcing amid much fanfare the hiring of Professor Aijaz Ahmad as a professor of comparative literature.

Oops. Make that a Chancellor's professor.

"Aijaz Ahmad, renowned political and literary theorist, joins the School of Humanities as Chancellor’s Professor in the Department of Comparative Literature"

http://www.humanities.uci.edu/SOH/about/press_release_det.php?id=347

So who is Aijaz Ahmad, other than being a "renowned political and literary theorist"? Apparently, he is a Marxist, anti-Israel, anti-Democracy and anti-Capitalist. Here is an interview of Ahmad by Asian Net TV News in 2014.



For one thing, he apparently isn't wasting any time attaching his UCI position to a petition he signed urging an academic boycott of a conference on India scheduled at Hebrew University in Israel this coming June.

http://www.usacbi.org/2016/02/south-asian-studies-scholars-statement-of-boycott-of-academic-workshop-at-hebrew-university/

Ahmad is number 4 on the list.

And look who is number 22 on the list: Why, none other than Jasbir Puar of Rutgers University. Great. A "renowned literary and political theorist" who doesn't believe in true academic freedom. I wonder what kind of "comparative literature" he will be teaching.

So it looks like we have another Marxist foe of democracy and Israel coming to UC Irvine-just in time for the May week of anti-Israel festivities, which will be brought to us by the Muslim Student Union and Students for Justice in Palestine. I wonder if he will be a featured speaker.

Just what UCI needs.


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