Professor of Sherlockology and Advanced Snape Studies

I am in Malmö and am so far behind on my work that I should be working instead of writing this. But I need to put it down somewhere and this is the only social media with a limited audience of people who are not at all part of the other networks in my life. It is also about the war in Israel and Gaza but not about the war - it's about me and my friends and the impact this is now having on our collaboration.

I am on this side of the world for about 12 days for two wonderful things and to also spend time with my mother in law, who is struggling with her new life here and the challenges that being old in Sweden bring. First, my friend-colleague-PhD student M had her 90% seminar on Friday. That is something like a practice final defense. We brought in a reader from the UK (a scholar from Turkey who is also the co-editor of the journal in this field). It was fabulous and I think M came away from that with a high degree of confidence and an understanding of what to do to streamline her thesis for the final defense in April.I am so proud of her and am looking forward to her finally being Dr and no longer doctoral student. She is brilliant. 

Then, from Wednesday to Saturday, I will be in Cyprus for a project (grant meeting). M is also part of this, but so are lot of other cool people, including an old friend who is leading the project and will then be heading directly to Dublin to run his second ever marathon. We tend to support each other in our running achievements. There are other fun people there and I am looking forward to spending time working and socializing with this crew. 

That was the good, but life is complicated. M and I, along with a colleage, H, in Tel Aviv, Israel have been planning a collaborative teaching project, called a Virtual Exchange that requires us to group our students into small groups for a series of tasks and intercultural discussion. We've done this multiple times before and have a great working relationship. We have had a planning meeting or two since the start of the war/attrocities. H's son has been called up - she is beside herself and is working herself to the bone to cope. 

Yesterday, M texted me to say she needed to talk to me about our Virtual Exchange and we spoke this morning. I anticipated what was coming. She is withdrawing from the Virtual Exchange and will let our partner H know tomorrow. This has to do with the war and attrocities. Specifically, colleagues in the department have taken her aside and said they think now is not the time to do a partnership with Israel and the US and especially not with this particular group of students. Sweden overall is very pro-Palestine and there are students in the class who are from that part of the world who have been affected by Israel and the US. We have even had Palestinian students in previous classes and M worked hard to guide them through this partnership in a way to make them feel safe and heard. However, this particular cohort  of students also includes some who have caused other problems (and were already protesting this project for other reasons even before the first attack). One has nearly driven another colleague to nearly resign and is considered a huge challenge. Because M is in her final semester of working on her PhD, her colleagues have questioned whether she can really handle the challenges and student complaints and protests that she will be faced with. They also said that if she does go forward that she should inform the chair, who should be apprised of this. 

M admitted to being very anxious about talking to me about this and was worried that I would be mad at her. I am not mad. It sounds like this is the right choice for her. And in fact, a part of me was expecting this and I think our colleague H will also be expecting this. 

I am most saddened by the pressure she is receiving. Another member of our department is also struggling in silence - she is originally from the Soviet Union but Jewish and lived in Tel Aviv for a few years before coming to Sweden. She does not foreground her Jewishness but it is a known part of her identity and history. Nevertheless, she is avoiding the news and talking about Israel at all right now because it is all too painful and upsetting. I mention this as an aside because it highlights the department culture M is working in - that no one is checking in on our colleague with connections to Israel and her own negative feelings about how Israel is attacking the Palestinians.

I reached out to the old marathon friend I mentioned above to share this experience as it's something I imagine he has seen or even experienced in his many years of this type of work. He gently told me he didn't have time to engage on account of rushing to plan for this project meeting and travel but would talk to me more next week. I don't know if I need to talk with him - I'm not sure what he could say but maybe I wanted to be heard. A part of me is afraid he might agree with the thinking that it's best to avoid Israel and the US right now. I hope not, but maybe it is. The US is not a beloved place - for many it is a horrifying imperialistic terror that is responsible for destroying their homes and way of life.

Since leaving Sweden for the US, I've been worrying about losing my connections to Europe and being positioned as a US outsider/too American/not one of us. I don't want to lose my personal connections to my friends, even if I have to lose research connections and teaching collaborations. I have a lot of other difficult thoughts about Israel and my relationships and connections there. But right now, I am feeling anxious about going to this European project meeting as the American consultant. I don't know what my colleagues will be talking about (Cyprus is very close to Israel) and i don't want to open my mouth and say something stupid and ignorant or nationalistic and unkind.

It's an interesting but tense thing when your government does something damaging or inexplicable.