Essential Dissent

Professor Khalidi is a Palestinian-American historian of the Middle East, and the Edward Said Professor Emeritus of Modern Arab Studies at Colombia University. The event was recorded on March 29, 2026 at the First Unitarian Congregational Society of Brooklyn. and was co-sponsored by First Unitarian Brooklyn’s chapter of Unitarian Universalists for Justice in the Middle East, New York City DSA Anti-war Working Group, and Brooklyn for Peace. The talk is a conversation between Professor Khalidi and Reverend Meagan Henry from the Unitarian Universalist Congregation at Shelter Rock, followed by a Q&A session.

This episode is a talk by Gabriel Rockhill to mark the publication of his new book, titled “Who Paid the Pipers of Western Marxism?” For Rockhill, an American philosopher, writer, cultural critic, and Professor of Philosophy at Villanova University, the term "Western Marxism" is not simply a geographic label or a neutral academic category. IInstead it denotes an ideological formation that depoliticizes Marxism and detaches it from revolutionary struggle, transforming it into a politically defanged cultural-philosophical discourse. In his view, Western universities, foundations, cultural institutions, Cold War anti-communism, and state and corporate funding structures all helped shape a form of Marxism that was safe, non-revolutionary, compatible with liberal capitalist societies, and “critical” but not politically threatening. His goal is to redirect Marxist theory back toward revolutionary praxis, global anti-imperialist movements, and material political struggle. Gabriel Rockhill spoke on December 11, 2025 in a panel discussion sponsored by Critical Theory Workshop. https://criticaltheoryworkshop.com

Aly Wane is an undocumented alien who has been organizing around immigration issues for over 20 years. An abolitionist immigration activist is someone who believes the current U.S. immigration enforcement system—ICE, Border Patrol, detention centers, deportation courts, and the laws that empower them—is fundamentally harmful and should be dismantled rather than reformed. The term “abolitionist” signals a radical reimagining of how societies handle migration—moving away from punishment, surveillance, and exclusion, and toward care, mobility, and belonging. Aly Wane spoke on February 9, 2026 at a webinar sponsored by the Syracuse, NY Peace Council. https://peacecouncil.net