Orientalism, Zionism and Academic Practice explores the field of Israeli Middle East and Islamic studies (MEIS) sociologically and politically, as a window onto the relationship between Orientalism, Zionism and academia. The book draws special attention to neoliberal discourse and praxis in everyday higher education, the interests of scholars, and the political form that commercialisation takes in specific disciplinary and geopolitical conditions, while also engaging with existing scholarly debates. It does so by deconstructing structural and historical presuppositions and effective ideologies that overdetermine this junction of academia, orientalism and Zionism. The multi-layered study draws on various scholarly traditions and offers new evidence for, and insights in, the historical and cultural-discursive discussions with which it engages. It highlights paradigmatic gaps in reading Saidian orientalism, evaluates the origins and evolution of the local field, contributes to the study of academic elites and everyday academic culture and practices in the social sciences and humanities (SSH), and unveils the presupposed and the unsaid of the general and the specific in the convoluted field, exploring the intersection of an orientalist expertise, in a settler-colonial society, and everyday academic capitalism. The present day academic expertise of the book on the Middle East and Islam in Israel, studies the contemporary relationship between Orientalism, Zionism and academia. It is an invaluable resource for academics, and students interested in Israel and Middle East studies, Higher education and Sociology.
Orientalism, Zionism and Academic Practice : Middle East and Islamic Studies in Israeli Universities