A Language of One's own: Literary Arabic, the Palestinians and Israel

A discussion of Ismail Nashef's book 'A Language of One's own: Literary Arabic, the Palestinians and Israel' with Prof Ismail Nashef, and Prof Christina Philips as a discussant on Wednesday, 23 April, 5 pm (UK time).

Registration is via this link: https://Universityofexeter.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_7IuvJL7qRjWZCKuirPnXxA

Following the establishment of Israel in 1948, literary Arabic became a central medium representing the Palestinian collective within Israel and, as a result, a contested public space. Various state agencies and Palestinian groups actively engaged in this space, advocating for specific ways of reading and writing in Arabic. These approaches played a crucial role in reshaping the Palestinian collective, a process set in motion by the 1948 war. Addressing the Palestinian reading public in Israel, both state agencies and Palestinian groups employed literary criticism, along with other genres, to promote and instill their preferred modes of reading and writing. The book's central argument is that, since 1948, three distinct modes have emerged for engaging with the Palestinian reading public through literary Arabic: the public intellectual mode, the academic mode, and the professional expert mode. Drawing on a wealth of literary, historical, and legal sources, the book provides in-depth and critical examinations of these modes, offering both historical and structural analyses. It concludes by revealing the settler-colonial structural barriers that obstruct the rebuilding of the Palestinian collective, demonstrating how these barriers manifest in the literary practices of both Palestinians and Israeli state agencies. 

Ismail Nashef is an associate professor in the Anthropology and Sociology program at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies. He has held academic positions at various universities in the Arab world and beyond. In addition to his academic career, he is a literary and art critic, as well as a curator. He has initiated and participated in numerous cultural and academic projects both within academia and in broader cultural spheres. 

His research focuses on materiality, language, and ideology, exploring how these themes manifest and are expressed in literature and visual arts. His current research examines visual arts and literature in colonial contexts, with a particular emphasis on Arab Islamic societies in general and Palestinian society in particular. 

His publications include: A Language of One’s Own: Literary Arabic, the Palestinians, and Israel (2023); Ruins: Expressing al-Nakbah (2019); Arabic: A Story of a Colonial Mask (2018); June’s Childhood: Dar al-Fata al-Arabi and the Genres of Tragedy (2016); Images of the Palestinian Death (2015); and On Palestinian Abstraction: Zohdy Qadry and the Geometrical Melody of Late Modernism (2014).

Recommended reading: Chapter 1& 3 of the book.

Any questions contact Dr Rama Sahtout - r.sahtout2@exeter.ac.uk