Noam Leshem

Excited to be heading to the East Coast this week for this lecture at @sasn.rutgers.edu

November 7, 12:30, at the Art Library, Rutgers University.

If you're around, do come along:

Really lovely to read this.

You never know how a book will land and @dannymcnally.bsky.social makes some vital observations here that go well beyond my book, touching on questions of method and ethics that I've been grappling with as well.

…it was a great (unrecorded) “episode” where we covered the future of university teaching in an AI age, the trials and tribulations of foreign policy writing, and got insights into what it’s like being the only sober person on the night of Newcastle’s cup celebrations.

Brews: IPA & Amber Ale

Friend: Remind me, are you going to Detroit next week for the big American geographers conference?

Me: Have you lost your mind?! I'm a German passport holder with a digital record of working in Palestine. That's a one-way ticket to El Salvador these days.

It made him laugh.

I wasn't joking.

"... we are united in denouncing, without equivocation, anyone who invokes our name – and cynical claims of antisemitism – to harass, expel, arrest, or deport members of our campus communities."
Strong letter from US Jewish academics.

docs.google.com/document/u/1...

sad and true.

Hey colleagues heading to spring conferences in the US:

There is a sense, among many, that Israel is so broken, its leadership so cynical, that it is truly a hopeless political experiment best left to the messianic settler-supremacist clan that runs it.

I struggle to offer a counterpoint.

Spot on.

“What’s left of the state of Israel besides bombings, destruction, abandonment and murder?

Nothing. Nada.”

Edges of Care A firsthand look at the lives of those who reside in no man’s land—the violence they endure and their immense resilience.   “No man’s land” invokes stretches of barren landscape, twisted barbed wire, ...

5/ For the past 10 years, this political logic of *uncaring* is what I've been seeing in Sudan, Syria, Palestine, Colombia, Cyprus and elsewhere.

The entirety of my latest book is exactly about this. Documenting abandonment as a logic of governance.

4/ Quick observations:

Abandonment is no longer a failure of sovereignty but inherent to it.

Abandonment isn't wielded as punishment. It isn't biopolitical per se.

Abandonment is not wielded for profit. It's not privatised. This isn't neoliberalism.

Take them seriously: They truly don't care.

3/ Later, Gawande notes that a foreign health minister told him recently "I never imagined America could be indifferent, could simply abandon people."

Of course, America has always abandoned people, at home and abroad. This this isn't new at all.

But abandonment is now becoming brazen and blunt.

2/ When Gawande says hundreds of thousands will die, Remnick is rattled: "I'm sorry, Atul, [...] this is nothing short of outrageous. And how is it possible that this is happening? Obviously these facts are filtering up to [...] the administration at large, and they don't care."

Bingo. They don't.

Atul Gawande on Elon Musk’s “Surgery with a Chainsaw” Podcast Episode · The New Yorker Radio Hour · 14/03/2025 · 27m

This is an eye-opening conversation between David Remnik and Atul Gawande, but not only for addressing the destruction of ASIAD and the catastrophe that it is causing.

It reveals in a blunt way how the Trump regime embraces abandonment as a system of rule.

🧵

Bingo

Living in the northeast of England, you don’t need a report to know this. You see it in the derelict streets, in cities and towns suffering from endemic underinvestment.

Regional discrepancy is critical here- we are simply not living in the same socioeconomic universe as London and the southeast.

My friend and colleague Ben Anderson has written about joy and right wing politics. Affect Theory in general has lots to say about this, though I have to admit I’m probably not best placed to expand on this.

Rule No. 6: "A good tactic is one your people enjoy."

For the Trumpists, the cruelty is the point. They enjoy it.

What is "the point" for the anti-Trump coalition broadly imagined?

What kind of tactic would manifest an enjoyable expression of that point?

The Tesla protests work because they are a physical and geographical embodiment of Saul Alinsky's Rule No. 13:

"Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it."

What are other ways to do so?

(The far right has coopted Alinsky for a decade now. It's time to reclaim him.)

Edges of Care A firsthand look at the lives of those who reside in no man’s land—the violence they endure and their immense resilience.   “No man’s land” invokes stretches of barren landscape, twisted barbed wire, ...

Noam Leshom, Edges of Care: Living and Dying in No Man's Land - @uchicagopress.bsky.social, January 2025
press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...
@newbooksnetwork.bsky.social discussion with Roberto Mazza
newbooksnetwork.com/edges-of-care

Large hall with ornate frescoes

Just heading back from “The Game” project workshop in Bologna- superb work on the refugee route in the Balkans site.unibo.it/thegame/en

If you’re organising a workshop, having 17th century frescoes is a great start!

#unibo

And a big shout-out to Judith Koch who helped record, edit and sort out all the technical aspects that made this happen!

I had such a great conversation with @pollypw.bsky.social on the Voices podcast of the @europeanisa.bsky.social, which is just out. We covered a lot, but it's a really fun exchange!

What is...No Man’s Land? Podcastaflevering · Voices: The EISA Podcast · 14-03-2025 · 1u 16m

For our latest Voices @europeanisa.bsky.social podcast I talked with @noamleshem.bsky.social about his amazing new book Edges of Care: Living and Dying in No Man’s Land podcasts.apple.com/nl/podcast/v...

This. 👇🏼

Yes, yes, yes.

Palestine-Israel Primer - MERIP Middle East Research and Information Project: Critical Coverage of the Middle East Since 1971

OUT NOW: The first major update to our Primer on Palestine, Israel and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, by Joel Beinin and Lisa Hajjar, in over a decade is now live! Read, teach, share!

Hey political theory and first century peeps! Susan Buck-Morss is here!! bsky.app/profile/buck...

We’re running an advanced workshop for political geography students on the geographies of settler colonialism and this is definitely top of the list to screen.

The Palestinian-Israeli film "No Other Land" has won the Oscar for best documentary feature at this year's Academy Awards.

Watch our interviews with two of the co-directors.

Basel Adra: www.democracynow.org/2025/2/18/ba...

Yuval Abraham: www.democracynow.org/2024/4/5/no_...

Spoiler! @alpinkerton.bsky.social gets a major shout out here!