The Corrie Award

The recipient of the award: a University of Tennessee English professor named Matthew Abraham, who currently is at work on what he terms"an analsyis of the controversial academic scholarship of Lani Guinier, Edward Said, Paul de Man, and Norman G. Finkelstein." Abraham first attracted national notice for organizing a panel at the 2003 MLA conference entitled"The Rhetoric of Resistance: The Intifada and the Literary Imagination," and recently he has focused"on the rhetorical strategies critical rhetors can use to cope" with the"obstacles" to an objective discussion of the plight of the Palestinians,"one of the most intransigent human rights issues of our time," within"the corporate university."

Committee chair Harriet Malinowitz, author of Textual Orientations: Lesbian and Gay Students and the Making of Discourse Communities, praised Abraham for"bringing Palestine onto the radar screen of a new generation of students--and that of his rhetorician colleagues."

Abraham wins particular kudos from the committee for his teaching style. He organizes his courses, committee members gushed, around questions rarely addressed in the academy, such as"What does it mean to 'speak truth to power'?" and"Why is the word 'advocacy' a dirty word in academe?" Committee members were also impressed by his commitment to intellectual diversity. He doesn't confine his course readings to"progressive voices." Instead, he includes in his newest course,"Rhetoric in the Public Sphere: Intellectuals, Writing, and Social Change," reading from the most thoughtful among the ranks of conservative public intellectuals--Ann Coulter.

The tributes to Abraham continue the quasi-parody style of the announcement. A former colleague wrote:"Dr. Abraham's work places his professional future between the profession's crushing institutional silence over Palestinian suffering and the forces that would enforce this silence at the peril of the profession's conscience." It seemed to me that I've run across one or two pro-Palestinian voices in the academy, but apparently I was mistaken.

Abraham, another University of Tennessee professor remarked,"has presented a critical perspective of the ways in which the academic elite fashion a treasonous discourse that places scholarship in the service of U.S. sovereignty and power, a discourse that all too often masquerades as professional practice in academe." Indeed, we all know that books hailing"U.S. sovereignty and power" in an uncritical light have flooded the academy in recent years.

The most Orwellian tribute, appropriately, comes from Noam Chomsky, who celebrated Abraham for his willingness to choose scholarly topics that threatened his ability to get a job. In the contemporary academy, Chomsky lamented, focusing on Said"takes a good deal of courage," since doing so invites"threats to possible appointment; and in fact more direct threats, including death threats, many taken seriously by police on campuses and in communities."

For the courage to criticize US policy in the Middle East, publish laudatory articles about Edward Said, and encourage a pro-Palestinian point of view by academic organizations, thereby risking his job in an academy bitterly hostile to all three approaches, Abraham is, indeed, a worthy recipient of the Rachel Corrie Award.