Joseph Ben Prestel
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jbprestel.bsky.social
Joseph Ben Prestel
@jbprestel.bsky.social
Historian of Europe & the Middle East | author, Emotional Cities (OUP, 2017) | current book project: Palestinians and the New Left in West Germany, 1950s-1980s
Pinned
Heute in der FAZ:

Mein Text zur Mythenbildung rund um die Kufiya, die in Deutschland seit dem 7. Oktober 2023 Aufschwung erhalten hat.

www.faz.net/aktuell/wiss...
For those in DENMARK:

I will participate in this year's Danish Science Festival with a talk entitled: How solidarity with Palestinians emerged in West Germany.

I am available in Zealand, Funen, and the greater Copenhagen region. The talk can be booked here: forsk.dk/indbakke/how...
How solidarity with Palestinians emerged in West Germany
When and how did solidarity with Palestinians emerge in Europe? Looking at the case of West Germany, this talk will show how migration and a global New Left led to developments in the 1960s that are still with us today.
forsk.dk
February 3, 2026 at 3:02 PM
Reposted by Joseph Ben Prestel
Unterschreiben! Die Kürzungen sind katastrophal und wirken sich sehr negativ auf die Qualität von Forschung und Lehre aus, insbesondere auch an der FRA UAS.

#nocuts #nocutsinhessen
+++ Teilt und unterschreibt unseren offenen Brief an die Hessische Landesregierung! +++ Wir werden die bevorstehende katastrophale Verschlechterung unseres Hochschulsystems nicht hinnehmen und fordern eine Neuverhandlung des Hochschulpakts! #nocuts #nocutsinhessen cryptpad.fr/pad/#/2/pad/...
Encrypted Rich text
CryptPad: end-to-end encrypted collaboration suite
cryptpad.fr
February 3, 2026 at 10:04 AM
I enjoyed Thomas Meany's astute review of Jason Burke’s “The Revolutionists" in the New Yorker. The book relates closely to my own work and I will write about it as well. But I can already say that Meany highlights some of the limitations of Burke's approach.

www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
Marx, Palestine, and the Birth of Modern Terrorism
A new history charts how Palestinian militants of the nineteen-seventies made common cause with West Germany’s radical left.
www.newyorker.com
February 2, 2026 at 8:30 PM
Reposted by Joseph Ben Prestel
So if you get raped by one colleague at Oxford’s Said Business School, you report it to your boss and they sexually harass you. Well done Oxbridge: goodlawproject.org/bent-flyvbje...
Bent Flyvbjerg is the Oxford academic said to have raped colleague | Good Law Project
Professor who is reported to have raped a junior academic still holds position at the university' Said Business School
goodlawproject.org
January 30, 2026 at 6:58 PM
Reposted by Joseph Ben Prestel
the White House's official X account gloats over the arrest of Don Lemon with a chains emoji
January 30, 2026 at 3:10 PM
Die IDF kommt in etwa auf die gleiche Zahl, die von Gesundheitsbehörden in Gaza im Nov. 2025 veröffentlicht wurde.

Wann werden die haarsträubenden Debatten über Opferzahlen in Deutschland während der letzten 2+ Jahre aufgearbeitet?

www.jpost.com/israel-news/...

www.bbc.com/news/article...
January 29, 2026 at 8:42 AM
Reposted by Joseph Ben Prestel
£42k for a lead (I.e. extensive experience) curatorial post - with management responsibilities - at a national library in one of the most expensive cities in the world? no wonder they’ve been on strike!
January 28, 2026 at 7:18 PM
Reposted by Joseph Ben Prestel
Some right-wing Jews, like Trump's antisemitism envoy, will deny even the full extent of the legal apparatus of Jewish persecution during the Holocaust, lest acknowledging that fact lead to empathy for other marginalized groups. www.jta.org/2026/01/27/p...
‘Anne Frank was in Amsterdam legally,’ Trump antisemitism envoy says in refuting Walz’s ICE comparison - Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun joined the US Holocaust museum in criticizing Walz.
www.jta.org
January 28, 2026 at 8:48 PM
Reposted by Joseph Ben Prestel
I wrote this song on Saturday, recorded it yesterday and released it to you today in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis. It’s dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good.

Stay free
Bruce Springsteen - Streets Of Minneapolis (Official Audio)
YouTube video by Bruce Springsteen
youtu.be
January 28, 2026 at 5:02 PM
Reposted by Joseph Ben Prestel
On Wednesday Bruce Springsteen released 'Streets of Minneapolis,' a protest song condemning the violence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Minneapolis. n.pr/3NUhXSa
Bruce Springsteen releases anti-ICE protest song 'Streets of Minneapolis'
On Wednesday Bruce Springsteen released 'Streets of Minneapolis,' a protest song condemning the violence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Minneapolis.
n.pr
January 28, 2026 at 8:29 PM
"An der Argumentation von Illouz ist nichts Neues, eigentlich handelt es sich um ressentimentgeladene Überlegungen ohne nähere Kenntnis. Sie drücken einen radikalen Empathiemangel für all das aus, was in diesen Theorien zur Sprache gebracht wird."
In ihrem Buch »8. Oktober« rechnet die israelische Soziologin Eva Illouz mit der französischen Theorie ab. Für Alex Demirović setzt sie sich dabei über die realen Positionen Foucaults und Derrida einfach hinweg.
Wilde Verdächtigungen
In ihrem Buch »8. Oktober« rechnet die israelische Soziologin Eva Illouz mit der französischen Theorie ab. Für Alex Demirović setzt sie sich dabei über die realen Positionen Foucaults und Derrida…
buff.ly
January 28, 2026 at 12:55 PM
Reposted by Joseph Ben Prestel
Hi Janosch, auch 2024 war Alex Karp schon dabei. Ebenfalls da: Habeck und Baerbock. Wäre schön, wenn ihr Axel-Springer und Döpfner auch kritisiert - möglicherweise gar boykottiert! - wenn ihr selber in der Regierung seid?
January 28, 2026 at 8:25 AM
Reposted by Joseph Ben Prestel
And then get panicked about how no one is having children because you also defunded KiTas.
January 26, 2026 at 11:57 AM
Reposted by Joseph Ben Prestel
Das völkische Denken der AfD-Abgeordneten stößt an sein Limit, wenn Deutsche mit Migrationsgeschichte sich als Teil der Gesellschaft, Kultur und Geschichte dieses Landes begreifen. Gerede von Integration ist Fassade, denn es geht ihnen um Abstammung und völkische Blutideologie.
January 26, 2026 at 11:27 AM
Reposted by Joseph Ben Prestel
Wo bleibt die digitale Souveränität?

Politik redet darüber – Hochschulen hängen weiter an US-IT: Windows, Office, Cloud. Bequem, günstig, abhängig.

Einige steigen um. Die Wissenschaft zögert. Warum eigentlich?

👉 Kommentar in ZEIT Wissen3 und im Wiarda-Blog: www.jmwiarda.de/blog/2026/01...
January 26, 2026 at 9:17 AM
Reposted by Joseph Ben Prestel
Just performative cruelty. By, among others, the nation’s top diplomat.
January 22, 2026 at 8:37 PM
Reposted by Joseph Ben Prestel
This video filmed by Ben Luhmann shows the moment a federal agent sprayed chemical irritants directly into a man's face in south Minneapolis.

Three agents already had the man pinned to the ground when a fourth agent walked up and sprayed the irritants.
January 22, 2026 at 1:41 AM
I was today years old als ich lernte, dass der Vater von Florian Illies Erstunterzeichner des Heidelberg Manifests war.

de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heidelb...
Heidelberger Manifest – Wikipedia
de.wikipedia.org
January 22, 2026 at 1:29 PM
Reposted by Joseph Ben Prestel
He's telling folks what will happen if they give an inch on Greenland
In advance of meeting with European leaders at Davos, Trump posted an image on Truth Social of him meeting with them with a map in the background depicting Canada, Greenland, and Venezuela as parts of the US.

The image is an altered version of a photograph of a meeting at the White House in August.
January 20, 2026 at 1:41 PM
Reposted by Joseph Ben Prestel
Das krasse Fehlurteil ist wahrscheinlich der rechtspopulistischen Integration über Feindbilder geschuldet, die nicht wenige interessengeleitete "Bürgerliche" teilen. Zugleich gehen vielen von ihnen selbst offenbar moralische Maßstäbe ab, die früher zum Grundkonsens gehörten.
January 20, 2026 at 1:30 PM
Reposted by Joseph Ben Prestel
www.ynetnews.com/article/skxj... Der Höhepunkt einer seit langem laufenden Delegitimierungskampagne gegen das Hilfswerk @unrwa.org. Auch in 🇩🇪 hat diese von verschiedenen Organisationen getragene Kampagne Wirkung gezeigt. Das Rückkehrrecht der Palästinenser*innen soll dadurch abgeräumt werden.
Demolition of UNRWA headquarters in Jerusalem begins | Watch
At Ammunition Hill in the capital, representatives of the Israel Land Authority began demolishing the UNRWA headquarters, after the Knesset decision to cut ties with the United Nations agency for Pale...
www.ynetnews.com
January 20, 2026 at 9:51 AM
Reposted by Joseph Ben Prestel
The actual story is that a family of American citizens trying to evacuate from a neighborhood that ICE had made unsafe, and then ICE tossed munitions into the car, causing three kids to be hospitalized and a six month old to stop breathing. DHS called the family “radical agitators”
January 16, 2026 at 5:16 PM
Reposted by Joseph Ben Prestel
The intellectual historian Camilla Boisen has written an extensive review article of my and Lauren Benton‘s books on war and genocide, bringing different fields into conversation. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
January 16, 2026 at 11:50 AM