“Palestine Studies, German Studies” Special issue of The German Quarterly
Provisionally scheduled for Issue 99.2, Spring 2026
Submissions due to guest editors by July 1, 2025
Guest-editors: Carl Gelderloos and David Gramling
Contact Email: gqpalestine@gmail.com
It has never been more urgent for German Studies to grapple with, and learn from, Palestine. A recent Lancet study has found that the death toll of Israel’s attacks on Gaza—which genocide scholars are increasingly calling a genocide—already approached 65,000 as of June 2024. The number of uncounted dead, starved or buried under the rubble, is possibly many times higher. As the discursive landscape shifts in response (Susan Neiman’s correction of her earlier praise for German memory culture and Marianne Hirsch’s recognition that, after October 7, courses on the Holocaust should also include the Nakba may stand as two examples of the larger shift) this special issue of The German Quarterlyseeks to pursue two interlocking questions: how do Germany’s historical genocides shape its reaction to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and how do the German state and the German public sphere help shape, materially and discursively, the unfolding catastrophe in the Middle East?
With this critical domain of Palestine Studies foremost in mind, we invite submissions for this special issue of The German Quarterly on the various topics that flow from these primary questions: rethinking the German Studies curriculum after October 7, 2024; the current state of the public sphere and memory culture in Germanophone countries; the question of genocide as it both links and divides the German responses to the Nama/Ovaherero genocide, the Holocaust, the Nakba, and the current violence; antisemitism and Islamophobia in our midst; the role of scholarly and cultural institutions vis-à-vis scholasticide, genocide, and responses to these such as BDS and student protests, to name only a few.
This special issue invites full-length articles (with an 8,000 word maximum, including notes and works cited) as well as shorter forum-style contributions (approximately 1,000 words) and book reviews, from any discipline or approach linking the broad endeavor of Palestine Studies with the endeavor of German Studies. Scholars from Middle East Studies whose work draws on German Studies discourses and dilemmas are welcome, as is the work of Germanists and Europeanists who track the profound, chaotic effect European cultural politics and brinkmanship have exerted on the Middle East over the past century and longer. Scholarship chronicling the suppression of Palestinian voices in German institutions, as well as pedagogical/educational work (at all levels K–16 and beyond) on transnational solidarity are welcome. Historical studies of Palestinian solidarity and barriers to it, as well as critical work on Islamophobia, antisemitism, genocide, and intellectual racism in the Palestine-German Studies axis will be illuminating. Forum contributions may treat topics concerning the place of Palestine in the public sphere, broadly conceived to include questions of academic freedom, censorship and cancelation, the status of speech on Israel/Palestine in German-speaking countries and North America, activism, and related topics. Forum contributions about other topics that link Palestine and German Studies are also welcome. We also would like to receive suggestions for book reviews on these topics; do reach out to the guest editors (at the email addresses above) early to discuss or suggest books to be reviewed in this issue.
This issue seeks to support and amplify excellent scholarship that might otherwise be occluded by suppression or disciplinary siloing. The issue is guided by Edward Said’s methodological insistence that “Nothing…is more reprehensible than those habits of mind in the intellectual that induce avoidance, that characteristic turning away from a difficult and principled position, which you know to be the right one, but which you decide not to take.” Work from early career scholars is welcome, and scholars from Palestinian institutions are particularly encouraged to reach out to the guest editors for support in the editorial process, though scholars from around the world are equally encouraged. Creative, multilingual, and mixed-methods / mixed- genre work will also be given diligent consideration, to whatever extent possible within the format of the journal.