One of the main efforts of the Open University Project is the development of curricula that an aid students, faculty and others to dig deeper into the most difficult political, legal and ethical issues currently debated in the Israeli/Palestinian context. So often campus-based discussion of Israel/Palestine is limited to political slogans, well-worn truisms, and appeals to familiar tropes about belonging, dispossession and identity.
The Open University Project was founded, in significant part, to help push these discussions to a deeper level where critique can be better informed and given-knowledge can be challenged. To this end we have generated study materials for students, faculty and others to use in study or reading groups to deepen knowledge about a set of challenging problems that have arisen in the Israeli/Palestinian context. These curricula are made up of background summaries, reading material, and guided questions that can strucutre a multi-session discussion of a comples topic such as citizenship.
These materials are meant to be crowd-sourced. That is, feedback, supplemental materials, new questions and other forms of expansion on these curricula are welcome. These materials are not intended to "get the questions right" but rather aim to begin a discussion. It is our hope that those who take up these materials will help improve them.
New curricula on additional topics will be added from time to time. We also welcome suggestions on new topics. Please email suggestions to [email protected], or fill out the webform on the Contact Us page.