Dr. Mona Baker | |
---|---|
منى بايكر | |
Born | September 29, 1953 |
Nationality | Egyptian, British |
Academic background | |
Alma mater | American University in Cairo, University of Birmingham, University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology |
Academic work | |
Discipline | Translation Studies |
Institutions | The University of Manchester |
Website | monabaker.org |
Mona Baker (born September 29,1953) [1] is a professor of translation studies and Director of the Centre for Translation and Intercultural Studies at the University of Manchester in England. [2]
Baker studied at the American University in Cairo,where she gained a BA in English and Comparative Literature. Afterwards she studied applied linguistics at the University of Birmingham,obtaining an MA. In 1995 she moved to the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology where she became a professor in 1997. She currently holds the Chair in Translation Studies. [3]
She is the founder of St. Jerome Publishing where she was editorial director until 2014 when Routledge bought the St. Jerome catalogue. She also founded the international journal The Translator. [4]
Since 2009 she has been an honorary member of IAPTI. [5] In the framework of this association she delivered a speech on "Ethics in the Translation/Interpreting Curriculum" [6] She is also co-Vice-president of the International Association of Translation and Intercultural Studies. [7]
As a researcher,she is interested in translation and conflict,the role of ethics in research and training in Translation Studies,the application of narrative theory to translation and interpretation,activist communities in translation and corpus-based translation studies;she has published extensively in these areas. She has also edited reference works. [8] In her most recent book,Rethinking Evidence in the Time of Pandemics (Cambridge University Press,2022;co-authored with Eivind Engebretsen), [9] she demonstrates how effective story-telling can enhance the reception of medical knowledge and reduce some of the sources of resistance and misunderstanding that plague public communication about the COVID-19 pandemic and other medical emergencies.
She received much criticism and created great controversy when she in 2002 removed two Israeli academics,Dr. Miriam Shlesinger of Bar-Ilan University and Professor Gideon Toury of Tel Aviv University,Israel,from the editorial boards of her journals Translator and Translation Studies Abstracts,based on their affiliation to Israeli institutions. [10] [11]
Baker stated that the interpretation of the boycott was her own and she did not necessarily expect other signatories in a similar position to adopt the same course of action. Baker,of Egyptian origin,said she was bemused by the row over two "tiny" journals. A spokeswoman for the university stated that:"This is nothing to do with UMIST. The boycott documentation clearly states Mona Baker signs it as an individual." [12]
Subsequently,Baker announced that Translator will no longer publish any research by Israeli scholars and will refuse to sell books and journals to Israeli libraries. [13]
In an email sent to Professor Toury on 8 June 2002,Baker asked him to resign and warned him that she would "unappoint you" if he refused. Baker justified her action by stating that "I do not wish to continue an official association with any Israeli under the present circumstances",although she also stated that her decision was "political,not personal" and that she still regarded Professor Toury and Professor Shlesinger as friends. [12]
Professor Toury subsequently responded that "I would appreciate it if the announcement made it clear that 'he' (that is,I) was appointed as a scholar and unappointed as an Israeli." Toury also stated that "I am certainly worried,not because of the boycott itself but because it may get bigger and bigger so that people will not be invited to conferences or lectures,or periodicals will be judged not on merit,but the identity of the place where the author lives." [12]
Dr Shlesinger responded that:"I don't think [Israeli prime minister] Ariel Sharon is going to withdraw from the West Bank because Israeli academics are being boycotted. The idea is to boycott me as an Israeli,but I don't think it achieves anything." [12]
Baker's actions were sharply criticised by Professor Stephen Greenblatt of Harvard University and the president of the Modern Language Association of America,who called the firings "repellent","dangerous" and "morally bankrupt". Greenblatt described Baker's actions as an "attack on cultural cooperation" which "violates the essential spirit of scholarly freedom and the pursuit of truth". [14] [12] British Prime Minister Tony Blair also criticised Baker's actions,and stated that he will "do anything necessary" to stop the academic boycott of Israeli scholars. [15]
In the British House of Commons,an Early Day Motion (EDM 1590) condemning Baker's actions was passed,stating that Parliament "deplores discrimination against academics of any nationality,as being inconsistent with the principle of academic freedom,regards such discrimination as downright anti-semitic while pretending simply to be opposed to Israeli government policy... and calls upon UMIST to apologise for this disgusting act and to dismiss Professor Baker." [16]
Judith Butler suggested that Baker had "engaged established anti-semitic stereotypes",though this "does not mean that she is anti-Semitic." [17] According to Butler,to claim "that all Jews hold a given view on Israel or are adequately represented by Israel …is to conflate Jews with Israel and,thereby,to commit an anti-semitic reduction of Jewishness." [18]
The National Union of Students (NUS),in addition to condemning academic boycotts as a whole,specifically condemning Baker's sackings of the two Israeli professors as "racist." Mandy Telford,president of the NUS,stated that "The National Union of Students stands firmly against all forms of discrimination. This is an abuse of academic freedom that can only have a negative impact on students at Umist...We wouldn't support the infringement of [people] being able to study because of where they live and where they are." Daniel Rose,the NUS's anti-racism campaign convenor,said:"To exclude people based on their nationality is abhorrent and nothing short of racism,and should be universally condemned." [19]
In 2002 the European Society for Translation Studies condemned the ousting of Toury and Shlesinger,both members of the Society,arguing that "in their intellectual work they are not representatives of their country but individuals who are known for their research,their desire to develop translation studies and to promote translation and intercultural dialogue." [20]
Baker received support from a number of sources,including the Muslim Association of Britain and the Manchester Palestine Solidarity Campaign. [21]
Baker wrote a detailed response to her critics (a brief summary of which was published in the London Review of Books ). Baker wrote that "the Jewish press in Britain is shamelessly and exclusively pro-Israel" and cited support for her position from Israeli Professor Ilan Pappe. She also cited a letter to the editor supporting her from Seymour Alexander,who identified himself as a British Jew,and Lawrence Davidson,an American Jew who co-authored "In Defence of the Academic Boycott" with her. She also criticised "the intense and highly distorting smear campaign led mostly by the Jewish press in the UK against me." [22]
In an interview with Al-Ahram ,Baker stated that "Anybody who thinks they are going to make any change in vicious,horrific policies like those of Israel and the US without affecting individuals is simply being naïve." Baker also stated that her decision to fire the two Israelis was "intended as a minor symbolic gesture but simply because of the arrogance of the Zionist lobby it's out of the bag now. And it's doing some good,I believe,in that it's forcing people to really confront the issues." [16]
In an interview with The Daily Telegraph ,Baker stated that she was the victim of "a large intimidation machine out there" that attempts to silence criticism of Israel and that "the Americans are the worst offenders". When asked about the dismissals,she responded to her critics by stating,"I'm damned if I'm going to be intimidated. This is my interpretation of the boycott statement that I've signed and I've tried to make that clear but it doesn't seem to be getting through. I am not actually boycotting Israelis,I am boycotting Israeli institutions". In the same interview,Baker sharply criticised Israeli policies,stating that:"Israel has gone beyond just war crimes. It is horrific what is going on there. Many of us would like to talk about it as some kind of Holocaust which the world will eventually wake up to,much too late,of course,as they did with the last one." [12] [23]
At a conference held in London in 2004 to discuss the implementation of a boycott of Israeli academic institutions,Baker stated that a boycott of Israel must avoid the appearance of discrimination and the risk of dilution due to individually chosen exceptions,and proposed that the academic boycott be cast as an economic boycott,which implies that all academics at Israeli institutions should be boycotted "to undermine the institutions that allow a pariah state to function and claim membership of the international community." In support of boycott,Baker stated "supporters of an economic boycott [against Tourism to Israel] do not ask whether the individual hotel workers who are being laid off in Israel are individually for or against the occupation." [24]
Alice Malsenior Tallulah-Kate Walker is an American novelist, short story writer, poet, and social activist. In 1982, she became the first African American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, which she was awarded for her novel The Color Purple. Over the span of her career, Walker has published seventeen novels and short story collections, twelve non-fiction works, and collections of essays and poetry.
New antisemitism is the concept that a new form of antisemitism which developed in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, tends to manifest itself as anti-Zionism and criticism of the Israeli government. The concept is included in some definitions of antisemitism, such as the working definition of antisemitism and the 3D test of antisemitism. The concept dates to the early 1970s, although the identification of anti-Zionism with antisemitism has "long been de rigueur in Jewish communal and broader pro-Israel circles".
Ilan Pappé is an Israeli historian and political scientist. He is a professor with the College of Social Sciences and International Studies at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, director of the university's European Centre for Palestine Studies, and co-director of the Exeter Centre for Ethno-Political Studies.
Antisemitism in universities has taken place in many countries at various times. Antisemitism has been manifested in various policies and practices, such as restricting the admission of Jewish students by a Jewish quota, or ostracism, intimidation or violence against Jewish students, as well as in the hiring, retention and treatment of Jewish staff. In some instances, universities have supported antisemitic government or social policies and condoned the development of antisemitic cultures on campus. In many jurisdictions, especially since World War II, discriminatory practices, including within the context of a university, are in breach of anti-discrimination laws, though antisemitic cultural values still persists on many campuses.
Disinvestment from Israel is a campaign conducted by religious and political entities which aims to use disinvestment to pressure the government of Israel to put "an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories captured during the 1967 military campaign." The disinvestment campaign is related to other economic and political boycotts of Israel.
The Ontario wing of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) has supported the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel since 2006. Their stance has encountered opposition from the Canadian Jewish Congress and parts of the press but also widespread support from university professors, Independent Jewish Voices, Palestine House, Canadian Arab Federation and labour unions. In 2009 the CUPE Ontario university workers' committee proposed to extend the campaign to boycott any joint work with Israeli institutions that carry out military research. That resolution became the focus of extensive controversy and was modified in response to pressure from the CUPE national president; the amended version was brought before the CUPE Ontario conference in May 2009 and passed with a 2/3 majority.
Virginia Tilley is an American political scientist specialising in the comparative study of ethnic and racial conflict. She is Professor of Political Science at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale in the US.
Criticism of Israel is a subject of journalistic and scholarly commentary and research within the scope of international relations theory, expressed in terms of political science. Israel has faced international criticism since its declaration of independence in 1948 relating to a variety of topics, both historical and contemporary.
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) is a Palestinian-led movement promoting boycotts, divestments, and economic sanctions against Israel. Its objective is to pressure Israel to meet what the BDS movement describes as Israel's obligations under international law, defined as withdrawal from the occupied territories, removal of the separation barrier in the West Bank, full equality for Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel, and "respecting, protecting, and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties". The movement is organized and coordinated by the Palestinian BDS National Committee.
The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law (LDB) is a nonprofit organization founded by Kenneth L. Marcus in 2012 to advance the civil and human rights of the Jewish people and promote justice for all. LDB is active on American campuses, where it, according to the organization, combats antisemitism and anti-Zionism.
Gideon Toury was an Israeli translation scholar and professor of Poetics, Comparative Literature and Translation Studies at Tel Aviv University, where he held the M. Bernstein Chair of Translation Theory. Gideon Toury was a pioneer of Descriptive Translation Studies.
The AMCHA Initiative is a pro-Israel American campus group that seeks to undermine BDS activities on campuses. AMCHA was founded in 2012 by University of California Santa Cruz lecturer Tammi Rossman-Benjamin and University of California Los Angeles Professor Emeritus Leila Beckwith. The term Amcha is Hebrew for "your people" or "your nation."
Boycotts of Israel are the refusal and calls to refusal of having commercial or social dealings with Israel in order to influence Israel's practices and policies by means of using economic pressure. The specific objective of Israel boycotts varies; the BDS movement calls for boycotts of Israel "until it meets its obligations under international law", and the purpose of the Arab League's boycott of Israel was to prevent Arab states and others to contribute to Israel's economy. Israel believes that boycotts against it are antisemitic.
The current campaign for an academic boycott of Israel was launched in April 2004 by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) as part of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign. The campaign calls for BDS activities against Israel to put international pressure on Israel, in this case against Israeli academic institutions, all of which are said by PACBI to be implicated in the perpetuation of Israeli occupation, in order to achieve BDS goals. Since then, proposals for academic boycotts of particular Israeli universities and academics have been made by academics and organisations in Palestine, the United States, the United Kingdom, and other countries. The goal of the proposed academic boycotts is to isolate Israel in order to force a change in Israel's policies towards the Palestinians, which proponents argue are discriminatory and oppressive, including oppressing the academic freedom of Palestinians.
Steven Salaita is an American scholar, author and public speaker. He became the center of a controversy when the University of Illinois did not hire him as a professor of American Indian Studies following objections to a series of tweets critical of Israel's bombardment of Gaza in 2014. He also experienced similar controversy during the hiring process at the American University of Beirut in 2016.
Miriam Shlesinger was a US-Israeli linguist and interpreter.
Malia Mazia Bouattia is the former president of the National Union of Students (NUS) of the United Kingdom, elected at the National Conference in April 2016. She was the first female Black British and Muslim leader of the NUS. She attended the University of Birmingham. In March 2017, she was defeated in her attempt to run for a second term in office by NUS Vice-president Shakira Martin.
Reactions to Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) refer to the views of international actors on the BDS movement.
The American Studies Association's boycott of Israel is an ongoing boycott of Israeli educational institutions by the American Studies Association (ASA). ASA's decision to begin boycotting Israel in December 2013 was controversial because it was the first major American scholarly organization to do so and it was heavily criticized. In April 2016, four ASA members aided by the pro-Israeli Brandeis Center sued ASA but the lawsuit was dismissed in 2019 when the judge ruled that plaintiffs lacked standing.
The Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism (JDA) is a document meant to outline the bounds of antisemitic speech and conduct, particularly with regard to Zionism, Israel and Palestine. Its creation was motivated by a desire to confront antisemitism and by objections to the IHRA Definition of Antisemitism, which critics have said stifles legitimate criticism of the Israeli government and curbs free speech. The drafting of the declaration was initiated in June 2020 under the auspices of the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem by eight coordinators, most of whom were university professors. Upon its completion the declaration was signed by about 200 scholars in various fields and released in March 2021.