Join us for this year’s PEN America Annual General Meeting as we interrogate the challenge of keeping civil discourse alive amid deep schisms. This panel discussion will examine not the conflict in the Middle East per se, but rather its ripple effects on the cultural, academic, and literary ecosystem back home. Through this conversation, we will endeavor to cultivate a space where writers and thinkers can navigate fraught topics by demonstrating a willingness to listen, engage, learn, and even narrow differences if possible.

We will hear from a panel of experts, including award-winning fiction and nonfiction writer Zaina Arafat; journalist and translator Yair Rosenberg; journalist, editor, and cultural critic Judith Shulevitz; writer and former Director of the Arab-Israeli Project at the International Crisis Group Nathan Thrall; and author, lawyer, and equity advocate Kenji Yoshino. The audience will be able to join the discussion and continue the conversation in a post-event reception. The event will be live-streamed for remote audiences and will have ASL interpretation.