Barnard College Barnard College
The Curiosity Initiative
Feb 9

David N. Myers | “Curiosity, Complexity, and the Pedagogy of Israel-Palestine”

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Sulzberger Parlor (3rd floor of Barnard Hall)
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  • Add to Calendar 2026-02-09 18:00:00 2026-02-09 19:30:00 David N. Myers | “Curiosity, Complexity, and the Pedagogy of Israel-Palestine” At the heart of curiosity is care (in Latin “cura”), which can be understood today in various ways. I care enough about you to be interested in what you have to say. Or I care enough about the pursuit of knowledge to cultivate openness to different perspectives on a certain topic. Both of these forms of curiosity cum caring inform my approach to teaching about Israel-Palestine. Together with a distinguished colleague at another institution, I have taught a seminar for the past five years that offers a multi-narrative approach to the history and politics of Israel-Palestine. The aim is to provide students with a more textured sense of context, to expose them to an array of divergent perspectives, to invite them to engage with unfamiliar or discomfiting ideas, and to encourage them to listen to one another with respect and, of course, curiosity. In this talk, I will discuss how I came to teach this class, why it is so important to me professionally and personally, and what I hope students take away, both in terms of knowledge of Palestine-Israel and of making their way in the world. I will also share my own transformation from an eyerolling skeptic about the power of dialogue to a confirmed believer. Indeed, I am compelled by the view of the great Brazilian theorist Paolo Freire that dialogue, when conducted in a genuinely non-hierarchical way, can generate the requisite critical consciousness to challenge dominant structures of power and push toward liberation. David N. Myers is Distinguished Professor of History and holds the Sady and Ludwig Kahn Chair in Jewish History at UCLA, where he serves as the director of the UCLA Luskin Center for History and Policy. He also directs the UCLA Bedari Kindness Institute, the UCLA Initiative to Study Hate, and the UCLA Dialogue across Difference Initiative. He is the author or editor of many books in the field of Jewish history, including, with Nomi Stolzenberg, American Shtetl: The Making of Kiryas Joel, a Hasidic Village in Upstate New York (Princeton, 2022), which was awarded the 2022 National Jewish Book Award in American Jewish studies. Most recently, he is the co-editor with Nechumi Malovicki-Yaffe of the volume New Trends in the Study of Haredi Culture and Society (Purdue University Press, 2024). From 2018-2023, he served as president of the New Israel Fund. In 2025, he was awarded a doctoral degree honoris causa from Hebrew Union College.   Sulzberger Parlor (3rd floor of Barnard Hall) Barnard College barnard-admin@digitalpulp.com America/New_York public
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David N. Myers wears a collared light blue shirt under a navy suit jacket and smiles directly at the camera. He wears black glasses and has dark gray hair.At the heart of curiosity is care (in Latin “cura”), which can be understood today in various ways. I care enough about you to be interested in what you have to say. Or I care enough about the pursuit of knowledge to cultivate openness to different perspectives on a certain topic. Both of these forms of curiosity cum caring inform my approach to teaching about Israel-Palestine. Together with a distinguished colleague at another institution, I have taught a seminar for the past five years that offers a multi-narrative approach to the history and politics of Israel-Palestine. The aim is to provide students with a more textured sense of context, to expose them to an array of divergent perspectives, to invite them to engage with unfamiliar or discomfiting ideas, and to encourage them to listen to one another with respect and, of course, curiosity.

In this talk, I will discuss how I came to teach this class, why it is so important to me professionally and personally, and what I hope students take away, both in terms of knowledge of Palestine-Israel and of making their way in the world. I will also share my own transformation from an eyerolling skeptic about the power of dialogue to a confirmed believer. Indeed, I am compelled by the view of the great Brazilian theorist Paolo Freire that dialogue, when conducted in a genuinely non-hierarchical way, can generate the requisite critical consciousness to challenge dominant structures of power and push toward liberation.

David N. Myers is Distinguished Professor of History and holds the Sady and Ludwig Kahn Chair in Jewish History at UCLA, where he serves as the director of the UCLA Luskin Center for History and Policy. He also directs the UCLA Bedari Kindness Institute, the UCLA Initiative to Study Hate, and the UCLA Dialogue across Difference Initiative. He is the author or editor of many books in the field of Jewish history, including, with Nomi Stolzenberg, American Shtetl: The Making of Kiryas Joel, a Hasidic Village in Upstate New York (Princeton, 2022), which was awarded the 2022 National Jewish Book Award in American Jewish studies. Most recently, he is the co-editor with Nechumi Malovicki-Yaffe of the volume New Trends in the Study of Haredi Culture and Society (Purdue University Press, 2024). From 2018-2023, he served as president of the New Israel Fund. In 2025, he was awarded a doctoral degree honoris causa from Hebrew Union College.

 

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