English 410 - Permission to Narrate: Palestinian Resistance Literature

Examining media and literature in the orbit of Palestine, it is devastatingly clear that, as Edward Said articulated, “facts do not speak for themselves.” This class will study Palestinian literature’s potential to intervene in imperial histories that have been built on decades of ethnic cleansing and archival destruction. First, we’ll study twentieth-century Palestinian history linearly, examining narrative literature on Ottoman Palestine, the British Mandate, the 1948 Nakba, the 1967 Naksa, the Lebanese Civil War, and the Intifadas. We will then turn to speculative works that cut across time, imagining alternate futures and potentializing what Ariella Azoulay calls the imperial timeline of history. This class will consider Palestinian literature across national and linguistic borders, considering literature’s relationship to statist power and its capacity to collaborate with, and critique, anti-imperial resistance. Taking seriously the idea of Palestine as a metaphor for liberation everywhere, we will read Palestinians as a society capable of narrating their own history, and as a community building solidarity with other liberation struggles. Readings may include Ghassan Kanafani, Sahar Khalifeh, Adania Shibli, Emile Habiby, Mourid Barghouti, Maya Abu Al-Hayyat, and Isabella Hammad, alongside historical framing from Nur Masalha, Nadia Abu El-Haj, Sherene Seikaly, Rashid Khalidi, and Gil Hochberg. Prerequisite: At least one English class at the 300 level or higher (or the equivalent level in another humanities department). Limited to 15 students. 

Spring semester. Writer-in-Residence Abraham.

How to handle overenrollment: Preference given to junior and senior English majors.

Students who enroll in this course will likely encounter and be expected to engage in the following intellectual skills, modes of learning, and assessment: Emphasis on written work, both scholarly and artistic. Close reading, independent research, and oral presentations.