I have only a layman’s knowledge of Rachel Corrie’s life and death, but my tentative sense of the matter is close to that expressed in this Dennis Prager column. I would not have, for instance, named an award after her — but others obviously disagree, as the mass e-mail that I reproduce below shows. (Note that this e-mail was forwarded to me by a reader; I have no reason to doubt its authenticity, and I have confirmed that the purported sender is indeed involved with the Award.)
Subject: [RFP] Matthew Abraham is 2005 Rachel Corrie Award Winner
I am extremely pleased to announce that Matthew Abraham, assistant professor of English at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, is the recipient of the 2005 Rachel Corrie Award for Courage in the Teaching of Writing. The award, now in its second year, is sponsored by the Progressive SIGS and Caucuses Coalition (PSCC) of CCCC, and will be presented at the PSCC annual Wednesday evening event at CCCC. This year the event will take place March 16 from 5:00 to 7:00 pm. (See the CCCC program for exact location.)
It happens that March 16 is also the second anniversary of Rachel Corrie’s death. As Matthew Abraham’s work has much in common, in its focus and its spirit, with Rachel’s, presenting him with the award that night will be a both a wonderful way to once again commemorate the life and deeds of the young woman/student who took what she learned extremely seriously, as well as to recognize the young man/scholar/teacher who is bringing Palestine onto the radar screen of a new generation of students–and that of his rhetorician colleagues.
As the numerous supporting letters for Matthew that flooded my mailbox attest, he has earned this distinction through his work in all three areas in which most of us are evaluated for tenure: teaching, scholarship, and service.
From bringing Ann Coulter’s writing, as well as progressive voices, into his undergraduate rhetoric and writing class (so that “students will learn about those aspects of argumentation that currently fuel cultural and political debate within the U.S.”) to creating a graduate course called “Rhetoric in the Public Sphere: Intellectuals, Writing, and Social Change” (in which he asks students questions they most likely haven’t encountered in their other courses, such as “What does it mean to ‘speak truth to power’?” and “Why is the word ‘advocacy’ a dirty word in academe?”), Matthew Abraham has taken the field of rhetoric and writing to a place where it vitally matters. As a former colleague of his at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania wrote to me about his teaching: “[I]f Rachel placed her body between the Caterpillar monster and the little house she was trying to protect, 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…. Not only did Matthew open students’ minds to the complexities of the situation in the Middle East through assigned readings, supplemental lectures, and planned participation in debate (he was a charismatic teacher; I observed in his classes the awe and admiration with which he was regarded by his students; he appealed to youth’s idealism, and he won!)–not only that, but also he led us, the faculty, out of our entrenched timidity and moral isolation toward the path of commitment and activism….”
Matthew was taking risks in his scholarship at least as far back as the time he wrote his dissertation (actually, not very long ago)–which was, in his own words, “an analsyis of the controversial academic scholarship of Lani Guinier, Edward Said, Paul de Man, and Norman G. Finkelstein.” His publications include “The Rhetoric of Academic Controversy after 9/11: Edward Said in the American Imagination” in JAC and “Supreme Rhetoric: The Supreme Court, Veiled Majoritarianism, and the Enforcement of the Racial Contract” (forthcoming in an anthology from the U. of Illinois Press). As a colleague in his department wrote to me, “Dr. Abraham 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.” Even his current department head wrote about him with admiration: “When [Matthew] came here for his job talk, he presented himself and his scholarly agenda without soft-pedaling it….There’s always pressure on new hires to be quiet and to fit in…..[Matthew] doesn’t keep quiet and he hasn’t changed his political commitments to please me or anyone else. He’s kept on with his work even though it means that he has to put up with the extra pressures that come with ideological tests.”
Many who read this announcement will recall that Matthew was the instigator of petitions on behalf of several intellectuals whose academic freedom has come under fire, including Ward Churchill and Tariq Ramadan. According to all accounts, Matthew has also been brilliantly innovative as an organizer of intellectual events–even when under threats of cancellation and boycott. Timothy Brennan, Professor of Cultural Studies, Comparative Literature, and English at the University of Minnesota, wrote to me of the 2003 panel Matthew organized for the MLA called “The Rhetoric of Resistance: The Intifada and the Literary Imagination”: “It was very well-attended and widely debated–a local triumph….. The word ‘intifada’ had never before appeared on the program of the MLA.” Victor Vitanza and others wrote glowingly of Matthew’s work as a guest moderator for an online Pre/Text symposium with Noam Chomsky and Norman Finkelstein that dealt with the responsibility of intellectuals. Vitanza wrote of Matthew’s handling of sometimes difficult–sometimes outright rude–questioners and commentators that he “disarmed the…people by being knowledgeable about what was being counter-questioned and by displaying a grace under fire that few have the ability to demonstrate publicly….His interperseonal skills are the best I have witnessed.”
The star participants were no less laudatory about Matthew’s role. Finkelstein wrote to me, “Although Corrie set the bar of courage at a nearly impossible peak for others to scale, I’m confident that, to the extent that anyone can, giving the award to Matthew would appropriately honor her memory.” Chomsky wrote, “Abraham not only organized the symposium, but was also its guiding participant. The leading themes were topics that particularly concerned Edward Said–and Rachel Corrie. That takes a good deal of courage in the public domain in the US, including an academic setting. It includes extremes of abuse and vilification, and for younger people, threats to possible appointment; and in fact more direct threats, including death threats, many taken seriously by police on campuses and in communities….Abraham handled all of this with skill, care, sympathetic understanding, and admirable courage. The same has been true of other initiatives of his in defense of freedom of speech and academic freedom, and of suffering people. It is an admirable record, one of which, I am confident, Rachel Corrie would have very much approved, as I do, very much….In brief, I cannot think of a more worthy candidate.”
I think I’ll let Chomsky have the last word. Please join us in honoring Rachel and Matthew as we present this award–as well as for two hours of discussion with other CCCC progressives–at the Wednesday night CCCC convention session “Affirming Action: A Roundtable by the Progressive SIG/Caucus Coalition (PSCC) and the CCCC Diversity Committee” on March 16, 5-7pm, in San Francisco.
Harriet Malinowitz
Chair, Rachel Corrie Award for Courage in the Teaching of Writing Committee
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