Today, on Speaking Out of Place, we are joined by eminent political theorists Michael Hardt and Sandro Mezzadra to talk about their thesis of a global war regime and its relationship with capitalist governments, a significant challenge to dominant conceptualizations of war, and its relationship with the international order.

We discuss colonial continuities, historical transformations, and global Palestine movements against the Gaza genocide as an inspiration for non-nationalist, internationalist resistance futures.

Michael Hardt teaches political theory in the Literature Program at Duke University. He is co-author of several books with Antonio Negri, including Empire. His most recent books are The Subversive Seventies and (with Sandro Mezzadra) Bolivia Beyond the Impasse. Together Sandro and Michael host The Social Movements Lab.

Sandro Mezzadra teaches Political theory at the University of Bologna (Department of Arts). His work centers on borders, migration, global processes, and contemporary capitalism. For many years now, he has been part of autonomist movements as an activist and he participates in the further development of Italian autonomist Marxism. Among his books in English, In the Marxian Workshops. Producing Subjects, London, Rowman & Littlefield, 2018. With Brett Neilson he is the author of Border as Method, or, the Multiplication of Labor (Duke University Press, 2013), The Politics of Operations. Excavating Contemporary Capitalism (Duke University Press, 2019), and The Rest and the West. Capital and Power in a Multipolar World (forthcoming from Verso, 2024).

As protests against Israel’s genocide in Gaza, ethnic cleansing on the West Bank, and apartheid repression within ’48 harden into a proliferation of encampments on US university campuses, still more have popped up across the globe—in Asia, Europe, Mexico, and elsewhere.

These encampments have been met with brutal repression as many universities have called in riot police and even the military. Today we are joined by activists from the US, the UK, and Northern Ireland to discuss this historic formation. On the program is a faculty member from Columbia University; a lecturer, organizer, and PhD student from the London School of Economics, plus a masters’ student and undergraduate; and two undergraduates from Queen’s University, Belfast, who helped push through a divestment agreement.

Even as some universities have started graduation ceremonies, these rituals have also been stages for protest and resistance, and these protests show no sign of lessening over the summer—it’s rather the opposite. The next academic year will certainly see an acceleration and expansion of what has started this Spring.

Sarah Ali is President of the Palestine Society at the London School of Economics, as well as a third-year Social Anthropology student.

Ethan Chua is a Chinese-Filipino spoken word poet, comic book writer, community organizer, historian, and scholar-activist. Their poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and published in The Journal, while their translations are forthcoming in AGNI and can be found in Alchemy and Asymptote. Their first chapbook, “Sky Ladders,” won the Frost Place / Bull City Press 2022 chapbook contest. Their graphic novel, Doorkeeper, is available in Philippine bookstores. Some of their scholarly work can be found in Philippine Studies: Historical and Ethnographic Viewpoints, and their words have been featured on the Washington Post.

Joseph A. Howley is Associate Professor of Classics at Columbia University where he also teaches in Columbia's Core Curriculum. His research focuses on the intellectual and social history of the Roman Empire. He has spent the last year organizing with other faculty in defense of student protestors, on behalf of Palestine, and against the weaponization of antisemitism.

Jack McGinn is a researcher, editor, designer and PhD student, based at the London School of Economics. His doctoral project focuses on the experience of the revolutions of 2011, particularly in the SWANA region, and in London he is an anti-borders and anti-imperialist activist, focusing on solidarity with Palestine. He is an organiser with London for a Free Palestine and the LSE UCU branch. He tweets at @jack_mcginn

Salim is Co-Chair of the Decolonise, Demilitarise, Democratise Campaign at Queen's University, Belfast. Studying International Relations and Conflict.

Eli is Secretary of the decolonise campaign, and QSU Education officer 2024-25.

As protests against Israel’s geocidal attack on Gaza and increased dispossession and violence on the West Bank grow into encampments that have sprung up across the globe, they have been suppressed by college administrators and national political leaders alike as being anti-Semitic and harmful to Jewish students. The US House of Representatives has just passed a bill endorsing the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of anti-Semitism as including criticism of the State of Israel.

In this context, there could be no better time to discuss a new book by Professor Geoffrey Levin, Our Palestine Question. In this fascinating and revealing study, Levin documents longstanding criticisms of the State of Israel, and of Zionism, by both Jewish American individuals and organizations, dating back to the early 20th century. In varying degrees, since the founding of the State of Israel, American Jews have argued for Palestinian rights, for their enfranchisement, for their repatriation, and some for a Palestinian state. In this episode of Speaking Out of Place we discuss the debates and controversies over the decades.

We are grateful that Professor Joel Beinin, an eminent historian and participant in many of these debates, is here with us, as well as prominent Jewish American activist Simone Zimmerman, who is co-founder of If Not Now and who appears in the documentary film, “Israelism.”

Joel Beinin is the Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History and Professor of Middle East History, Emeritus at Stanford University. His research and teaching have been focused on the history and political economy of modern Egypt, Palestine, and Israel, and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. He has written or edited twelve books. In 2001-02 he served as president of the Middle East Studies Association of North America.

For many years Joel Beinin was a member of the editorial committee of the Middle East Research and Information Project, which provides critical reporting and analysis of state power, political economy, social hierarchies, and popular struggles in the Middle East and US policy in the region. More recently, he is a non-resident fellow of Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), an American non-profit organization that advocates for democracy and human rights in the Arab world.

Geoffrey Levin is assistant professor of Middle Eastern and Jewish Studies at Emory University in Atlanta. His research interests lie at the intersection of Jewish, Arab, and modern US. histories.

Prior to joining Emory's faculty, Levin was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University's Center for Jewish Studies. He holds a PhD in Jewish history from New York University. Our Palestine Question, published by Yale University Press last November, is his first book. The book has been discussed media outlets including The Washington Post, The Guardian,+972 Magazine, and Jewish Currents, and it is now available as an audiobook.

Simone Zimmerman is an organizer and strategist based in Brooklyn, New York, and the co-founder of the Jewish anti-apartheid organization IfNotNow. Her personal journey is currently featured in the film Israelism, about a younger generation of American Jews who have been transformed by witnessing the reality in the West Bank and connecting with Palestinians.