Duggan is the president-elect of the American Studies Association and Marez is the president. According to this Inside Higher Ed piece, they both support a pending motion to have the ASA endorse a boycott of Israeli universities. If the IHE piece is correct, I think they should be treated by all academics (and others) of good will and sound mind the way they would treat Israelis–no lecture invites, no publications, no nothing. In short, boycott the boycotters. And that goes for anyone else who votes for the boycott. [UPDATE: Cathy Young has a fine column on the hypocrisy of the boycotters. Duggan is one of the “queer theorists,” who, as Young notes, in some bizarre logical inversion have focused their wrath on the Middle East’s most gay-friendly country, by far.]
UPDATE: Perusing the ASA’s website, I see that they have a prize named after Angela Davis–yes, that Angela Davis, Gus Hall’s two-time running mate on the Communist Party ticket in 1980 and 1984 (so much for the ASA’s commitment to academic freedom (the purported rationale for the boycott), not exactly something Communists are known for). When did “mainstream” academia become such a circus?