Season 4, Episode 12: On Theory in a Time of Genocide - A Conversation with Prof. Adam Rzepka

Watch & listen to Ahmed Bouzid’s conversation with Prof. Adam Rzepka, Associate Professor, English, Montclair State University. We discuss the topic of: What use are theory, academia, and intellectuals in general, when they are not only not able to stop a genocide such as the one in Gaza and the West Bank, but seem to go about their regular routine, as if nothing worth their attention is taking place?
Is "theory" and theorizing about the world needed at all, when from all indications, the only force that is pushing in a sustained way to stop the genocide are students who seem to have been moved into action NOT by attaining an understanding how world works through intellectual pursuits, but by witnessing raw and gruesome images of children and innnocent people killed and maimed, and soldiers and the politicians who finance them, engaged in what are clearly war crimes and crimes against humanity?
The question boils down to this: Do we need theory at all, do we need theorists, do we need scholars, do we need universities -- when they clearly have failed the ultimate test and the most basic test: Stopping the non-stop slaughter of women and children?
Key terms: Genocide, Gaza, Palestine, Social Theory, Critical Theory, the Intellectual, The University
Key links:
- www.montclair....
- / adam-rzepka-b5896466 xenogothic.com...
- montclair.acad...