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3 Responses to “HNN Peddles Same Old Recycled Smears of Nadia Abu El-Haj”

1. Ralph Harrington says:

   October 16, 2007 at 12:54 AM

   Just a couple of quick clarifications, Richard, If I may. First, I’m not an archaeologist, I’m a historian. Second, whatever I may think of the anti-tenure campaign (and I don’t think much of it) I take no position on the tenure issue itself. My view is that whether Nadia Abu El Haj gets tenure or not is a matter between her, her academic peers and her institution, and is nobody else’s business.

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2. Joachim Martillo says:

   October 17, 2007 at 2:25 PM

   From http://eaazi.blogspot.com/2007/09/jacob-lassner-and-nadia-abu-el-haj.html .

   [The] … main thesis [of Facts on the Ground] … appears on page 11.

   Disputing the notion that all experimentation is dominated by theory, Ian Hacking insists that experimentation has a life of its own (1983: 150; see also Galison 1987, 1997). In other words, the history of experiment cannot be subsumed to that of theory. … In granting experimentation independence from theory, Hacking also argues that we reconceptualize “the criteria of reality” (142). He suggests that reality has far less to do with what we think about the world than what we do in and to it (17). … And it is precisely such processes of manipulation — of intervention — that characterize experimental life: the “making, moving, changing” of phenomena (Galison 1997:800).

   Abu el-Haj demonstrates in her book that the practice of Israeli archeology affects the theory and the sociology of Israeli archeology and hence the larger Israeli society. If Lassner had a clue, could have overcome his Zionist prejudice, and had read the book (carefully), he might have recognized the tremendous scientific achievement in elucidating a process that occurs in many situations.

   During Southern slavery Southern doctors used their slaves as experimental subjects to the profound corruption of the theory and sociology of US medicine, and the effects of this perversion lingered to affect the larger American society long after the end of slavery.

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3. the greycat blog » Blog Archive » Nadia Abu El Haj and ‘pure political fabrication’ says:

   October 23, 2007 at 9:15 AM

   [...] Most of the attention this paragraph has received has focused upon the phrase, or rather fragment, ‘pure political fabrication’. Critics of Nadia Abu El Haj have taken the words as indicating that the author is arguing that that ’the modern Jewish/Israeli belief in ancient Israelite origins’ is a ’pure political fabrication’, sometimes reproducing the author’s original emphasis, sometimes not (here are some examples). In response to these charges, others have argued that the words ‘pure political fabrication’ have been taken out of context and misinterpreted, and that Nadia Abu El Haj is saying precisely the opposite, that Israel’s ancient history is not a pure political fabrication (examples here). [...]

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