The very stimulating and thought-provoking International Saga Conference in Katowice and Kraków has drawn to a close. As always I come away from it wiser than before, with fresh ideas and knowledge, but the most important part of the conference for me is, and always has been, meeting old friends and gaining new ones.
In spite of the joys of this academic family reunion, the part that mosts sits with me now is the dark and dangerous times we live in. The personal is always political but politics have become personal in a way and to an extent that I have not experienced before. To wit, precarity in academia and academic boycotts are both heavily on my mind, more so than ever, intertwined with thoughts on academic freedom and freedom of expression. Due to the sensitive nature of some of my colleagues’ situation I will not be referencing some people by name.
The psychopathic invasion of Ukraine by Putin has changed the state of all things. Many universities have responded by boycotting academics at Russian research institutions, over 4000 teachers, staff, students, and graduates of Moscow State University having signed a letter already in 2022 condemning the invasion notwithstanding. I can only imagine that many of these people have faced severe repercussions for signing the letter.
A handful of esteemed colleagues hold professorships in Moscow institutions and the boycott has left them out in the cold, regardless of their opinions, the hands of European colleagues tied by their respective institutions. I know for a fact that this has ended lifelong friendships in some cases. Not least for this reason I was happy to see the name of one of my Russian friends on the list of participants in the Saga Conference. Alas, they did not show up, neither in person nor online. None of us know what happened, whether they are not permitted to travel or whatever else might be the cause. In all honesty I am becoming fearful that I might never see them again.
Visiting evil on a whole different level is the ongoing and overt genocide in Gaza, with Israeli politicians patting each other on the back while they announce their plans to the world not just to get rid of Hamas, but to wipe Palestinians from existence. This has created a situation in which demands for boycotts grow stronger by the day. The US president has responded by blackmailing American universities to stay quiet and adhere to his latest inane definitions of human rights, leading prominent academics to either leave the country or resign in protest — and who knows what might become of universities and their staff in the near future as the USA becomes ever more like Russia.
The latest affront to academic freedom is Trump’s plan to take down Californian state universities, which would leave many of my colleagues and friends, Jewish and others, without a job. Some of my Jewish colleagues have expressed fear that they might soon be unwelcome at academic gatherings with the escalating polarization between those who abhor Israel’s genocide and those who view it in terms of Netanyahu’s framing of it, with many Jews and Israelis caught in between in the crossfires. One of those expressing this anxiety is a dear friend of mine, an avid opponent of both Hamas and the wanton destruction of Gaza. If they were to accept a position at an Israeli university I would not be able to work with them in any capacity. As it is the decision of my department to boycott Israel, my hands are tied. No matter what my friend’s opinion might be.
I want to make my opinion on this particular matter clear: Hamas is atrocious and disgusting. Netanyahu’s government even more so. I think anyone with a heart feels the same way. It is simply beyond discussion, no arguments to be made in service of any other perspective.
Which leads me to another colleague of ours, a Russian Jew, a vocal antifeminist, antimuslim supporter of Zionism who wishes to see Palestine wiped off the face of the Earth, yet they do not seem to share this dread with my friend. They speak their mind without hesitation, always, and as an unaffiliated expatriate living in Europe they do not face the same restrictions as others. Ultimately, neither of them felt unwelcome at the Saga Conference. And neither did the Polish nationalist who supports the local fascist party PiS and delicately snuck his anti-abortion agenda into his conference paper.
All this is a fairly long-winded way of offering an opinion on academic boycotts. I do believe that boycotts have their merits, but I do not believe that one size fits all. Medieval Scandinavian studies is a small familial community of people with like-minded pursuits and diverse backgrounds and politics, from Marxists to ultra conservatives. We mostly get along. We mostly all know each other. I think we should get to decide who we boycott and who we don’t. People who actively advocate for murder are inherently different from those who oppose it, though they might otherwise share identities, including nationality.
I am worried about silencing. At the same time I think that our democratic right to protest supercedes such principles in some cases. The other day an Israeli academic, instrumental in the development of the AI that is killing innocent people in Gaza, and a vocal supporter of the Israeli government and its military’s atrocities, was silenced by protesters at the University of Iceland. His lecture on AI was stopped before it could begin and the event was cancelled. There is a long standing tradition of such things happening at university campuses and as always, there were many different opinions on the validity of these actions. Personally I cannot see how the democratic right of protesters could be lesser than the right of speech of a single speaker who invited himself to the institution, not only in light of his ideology but in general. He maintains his academic freedom, though he was not welcomed at this particular event. I have seen shouting at conferences to the extent that the speaker was overwhelmed. I have never experienced these occurrences as any kind of attack on their academic freedom. What I am more worried about than some single mouthpiece of a sick government getting this kind of treatment is the discreet silencing of academics who in fact oppose those very governments against which boycotts are directed. Such has been the case with my Russian colleagues.
While it undoubtedly would be difficult to practice boycotts with exceptions, I do believe that universal boycotts might in the end contribute to an extra layer of precarity. Good people living under totalitarianism that they are powerless to stop will be the first thrown under the bus — both at home and abroad. I have already seen this with my Russian colleagues. Their governments could not care less about whether or not they get to speak somewhere or work on the latest volume of the Skaldic Poetry Project. In fact it would be best if the government remained oblivious of their existence in general, let alone their personal politics. People have been known to disappear in Russia. Boycotting these colleagues will not bite anyone but them.
Extremes have been witnessed also in our Fair Free Europe. A colleague of mine in Estonia was silenced by his own university for interesting himself in researching the modern history of the Russian minority community in that country and its Soviet past. Due to the dramatic history of the relations of these countries my colleague was censored and his academic freedom was threatened by the very institutions that should have protected him, as if that very freedom wasn’t the base tenet of what a university is — much like is happening in the United States. At the same time this Russian minority has been gradually stripped of all rights, effectively becoming stateless people, and are thus being pushed farther in the direction of Russian nationalist propaganda. Thus the polarizing forces in both academic and political discourse are frequently their own worst enemies.
Had this happened to me I would have thought quickly about what other options I had. Telling me what I can’t research is even worse than telling me who I cannot collaborate with on that research. I can only imagine how that Estonian university would have reacted had my colleague been working with a Russian on that project.
My main concern is that academics are under threat of losing their jobs all over the world due to these conflicts. Academic precarity is extreme enough as it is without us imposing extra layers to it. Freedom of thought and academic freedom are under fire while we simultaneously exclude people with unfortunate passports and make others redundant. We keep training young scholars in a world that won’t offer them opportunities.
This is what Rebecca Merkelbach’s keynote addressed so eloquently. She is an excellent young scholar whose department is about to be dissolved and her own place in our community about to be made redundant. Some of our colleagues did not quite get what she was saying; certainly the future is bright, just look at all these young scholars in the room! Those young scholars are mostly without research grants, holding on to dear life while contributing to our collective search for elusive truths, and it will be a nightmare to witness most of them disappear within a few years. The future is not bright. Our discipline is failing and we are under attack from all directions. Has anyone forgotten the constant downsizing of the Arnamagnæan Institute in Copenhagen, amid plans to shut it down completely? In the end, none of us are safe.
The young ones might not make it. Established ones are being fired and threatened because they don’t fit in with the corporate and political policies of their universities and governments. While in the bigger scheme, the world gearing itself up towards World War III, this might not seem so important. But more and more academics are finding themselves on the streets and I do not wish to contribute to that by excluding the intersectional precariat, the jobless minorities working under dictatorships. We must remain in contact and fight fascism together: in Russia, Israel, the United States, and elsewhere. We are quite powerless and will probably lose, but at least we will go down together.
Rephrasing Martin Luther King I would rather judge my colleagues by the content of their character. Rather than excluding entire institutions and countries I think we need to create a safe space for academics to work together internationally. I know this is the most difficult path, but I think it’s one worth exploring.