Statement on Palestine Writes Literature Festival

Shield

The Palestine Writes Literature Festival, a multi-day event featuring Palestinian writers, filmmakers, and artists, will take place on the University of Pennsylvania’s campus later this month. This public event is not organized by the University. As is routine in universities, individual faculty, departments and centers, and student organizations are engaged as sponsors, speakers and volunteers at this conference intended to highlight the importance and cultural impact of Palestinian writers and artists.

While the Festival will feature more than 100 speakers, many have raised deep concerns about several speakers who have a documented and troubling history of engaging in antisemitism by speaking and acting in ways that denigrate Jewish people. We unequivocally -- and emphatically -- condemn antisemitism as antithetical to our institutional values. As a university, we also fiercely support the free exchange of ideas as central to our educational mission. This includes the expression of views that are controversial and even those that are incompatible with our institutional values.

M. Elizabeth Magill, President
John L. Jackson, Jr., Provost
Steven J. Fluharty, Dean, School of Arts & Sciences

Arts & Sciences News

Nikhil Anand Named Daniel Braun Silvers, W’98, WG’99, and Robert Peter Silvers, C’02, Family Presidential Associate Professor of Anthropology

Anand is an environmental anthropologist whose research focuses on cities, infrastructure, state power, and climate change.

View Article >
Timothy Rommen Named Martin Meyerson Endowed Professor in Interdisciplinary Studies

Rommen, Penn’s inaugural Vice Provost for the Arts, specializes in the music of the Caribbean with research interests that include popular music, sacred music, critical theory, and more.

View Article >
Adriana Petryna named Francis E. Johnston Term Professor of Anthropology

Petryna focuses on the socio-political nature of science, how populations are enrolled in experimental knowledge-production, and what becomes of citizenship and ethics in the process.

View Article >
Radwa El Barouni Appointed to J. Dean Amro Endowed Lectureship

El Barouni is currently the director and coordinator of the Arabic Language Program at the University of Pennsylvania in the Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures department.

View Article >
Paul Cobb Appointed Director of the Middle East Center

Cobb is a specialist in the history of the premodern Middle East, and his areas of interest include animal studies, Christian-Jewish-Muslim relations, and the history of travel and exploration.

View Article >
Habib Salim, C’23, and Chuanyuan Liu, W’23, Named 2025-26 Schwarzman Scholars

The scholarship funds a one-year master’s degree in global affairs at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

View Article >