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Mad wardtime writings of a sad mad runaway muslim transfem dyke
Poems I wrote in the ward
Breaking down these walls
is such a wonderful idea
for a second date… Don't you think?
Imagine just coming here.
Without these wristbands.
As people… free.
We are only people when we are free.
We can take down their bricks and books.
De-religionize, De-Colonise, De-"sane"itize.
And build our dreams from the ashes.
The real political task in a society such as ours is to criticise the working of institutions which appear to be both neutral and independent; to criticise them in such a manner that the political violence that has always exercised itself obscurely through them will be unmasked so that one can fight them.
– Michel Foucault, The Chomsky-Foucault debate (1971).
This article emerged from a seminar led by Catherine Konig Pralong in the spring of 2023, with reflections on positionality further refined during the CEFRES-EHESS Annual PhD Workshop titled “Dynamics of Political Participation: Disciplinary Knowledge through the Prism of ‘Area Studies’.” Though I initially planned to publish it shortly thereafter, the genocidal war on Gaza and its devastating toll on Palestinians – both within Gaza and across the diaspora – made publishing a critique of a Palestinian scholar’s work feel unconscionable, regardless of its subject m