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The ELIA Dialogue Series seeks to facilitate discussion by creating brave spaces for international dialogue, embracing a plurality of perspectives, guided by frameworks of mutual respect. We invite all those working and studying at ELIA member institutions to the first in a series of online events, to discuss and debate the role of higher arts education in response to conflict and crisis. In each session, we will invite a different thought-leader or academic to give short impulses to the conversations based on their research and practice.
The ELIA Dialogue Series will be moderated by Dr. Silke Lange, Reader in Hybrid and Participatory Pedagogies at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London. The first session on 12 July will feature a talk by Dr. Jannis Julien Grimm, titled: “Academic Integrity in the Context of Conflict and Humanitarian Crisis: Defending Higher Education as a Space of Empathy and Multi-Perspectivity”.
Abstract
Debates about conflict in Palestine/Israel have become uncoupled from the massacre of 7 October 2023 and the brutal conflict and humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip. They increasingly revolve around the language employed to grasp an increasingly violent empirical reality. Analytical terms such as war, genocide, self-defense, terrorism, colonialism, or resistance do not, in principle, imply a normative position on the conflict. In practice, public debate has turned them into declarations of loyalty to different warring factions. This wrangling over a legitimate terminology to describe what happened on 7 October, and what is currently happening in the Gaza Strip, has hindered scholars in their ability to provide analytical depth to a highly emotionalised and polarised public debate.
This contribution questions the responsibility of scholars to reject the common tendency to equate explanation with justification, to oppose the disciplining of critical reflections about violence in the Middle East, and to defend the multi-perspectivity of debates about violent dynamics at higher education institutions.
Contributors
Dr. Jannis Julien Grimm is the Director of the Research Group "Radical Spaces" at the Center for Interdisciplinary Peace and Conflict Research at Freie Universität Berlin. His work focuses on the condition and effects of radical politics and (non)violent resistance, with a focus on the Middle East and North Africa, as well as transnational processes of mobilisation in response to violence. Jannis holds a PhD in political science from the Berlin Graduate School Muslim Cultures. After his doctoral studies, he served as a co-director of the SAFEResearch project at the University of Gothenburg where he led the development of the first comprehensive handbook for research safety and ethics in hostile environments. Jannis Grimm is also an associate researcher at the Institute for Protest and Social Movement Research (ipb) in Berlin and a member of the Berlin University Alliance’s forum on diplomatic resilience. He has conducted field research, amongst others in Colombia, Egypt, Lebanon, Tunisia, Türkiye and Libya, and worked as a consultant for the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation, the German Foreign Office, and various human rights organisations and political foundations. His monograph "Contested Legitimacies: Repression and Revolt in Post-Revolutionary Egypt" was published in 2022 by Amsterdam University Press.
Dr. Silke Lange is a creative practitioner, educator, and researcher. She has over twenty years’ experience in creative arts education in a variety of roles and organisations, across levels and subjects, and geographical borders. Her professional practice/research is mostly collaborative, working at the intersection of educational practice and knowledge exchange. This approach has been providing a productive platform for exploring alternative models of educational provisions, and collectively reimagining knowledge-making processes. Silke has a long-established track record in developing strategies of connecting different communities, lowering hierarchies of knowledge generation within educational frameworks, and fostering cultures that support professional development of individuals and teams at any level. Building and changing cultures are collective undertakings; her interventions are driven by one of her core values: participation. Participation in the sense of co-developing culturally responsive pedagogy, co-curating learning environments and co-designing alternative modes of learning. Silke Lange is an engaged ELIA member and currently actively involved in ELIA's UAx Project supporting art students and higher arts education institutions in Ukraine.
Context of the ELIA Dialogue Series
In light of the escalating humanitarian crisis in Gaza, the global wave of student protests and intensified public debate surrounding campaigns for an academic boycott of Israel, the ELIA Representative Board issued an updated statement on 31 May 2024. Alongside this statement, ELIA announced a series of follow-up actions engaging higher arts education communities, international experts, and thought leaders to address the urgent questions that are being raised on the role of higher arts education institutions in relation to this conflict.
ELIA condemns in the strongest terms all violations of human rights and international law reported in Palestine and Israel. We join calls for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, reinforced international efforts towards peaceful resolution, and the protection of civilians in the region. We stand in solidarity with those affected and displaced by this conflict and humanitarian crisis. We reiterate that ELIA stands against all forms of discrimination and racism, including antisemitism and Islamophobia.
Dr. Jannis Julien Grimm is the Director of the Research Group "
twenty years’ experience in creative arts education in a variety of roles and organisations, across levels and subjects, and geographical borders. Her professional practice/research is mostly collaborative, working at the intersection of educational practice and knowledge exchange. This approach has been providing a productive platform for exploring alternative models of educational provisions, and collectively reimagining knowledge-making processes. Silke has a long-established track record in developing strategies of connecting different communities, lowering hierarchies of knowledge generation within educational frameworks, and fostering cultures that support professional development of individuals and teams at any level. Building and changing cultures are collective undertakings; her interventions are driven by one of her core values: participation. Participation in the sense of co-developing culturally responsive pedagogy, co-curating learning environments and co-designing alternative modes of learning. Silke Lange is an engaged ELIA member and currently actively involved in