"The catastrophic expulsion of the Palestinian people from their homeland in 1948 is a historic injustice that demands the attention of the entire world. Americans, Israelis, and Jews in every nation must especially give heed to this astonishing collection of masterful essays. Far from being a melancholy assemblage of anger and self-pity, this book is a major political and scholarly achievement, reflecting deeply on the traumatic roots of national identity, the role of memory and amnesia, history and mythical narrative, legal doctrine and eyewitness testimony, women's experience, men's business, and lost places found again in song, story, and film. This is essential reading for anyone who longs for a just settlement to 'the question of Palestine,' the question of the Middle East, or, indeed, the establishment of a world order of peace and justice." -- W. J. T. Mitchell, The University of Chicago, and author of What Do Pictures Want?: The Lives and Loves of Images "These essays form a formidable, thoughtful, and incisive collection. The analyses here engage trauma studies, the problem of the historical construction of memory, and the ways politics seize upon and efface memory for the purposes of establishing historiographical control over the past. These writings are pervasively critical, in the best sense, demonstrating at once the difficulty and the necessity of memory. At stake in this volume is not only how to tell the story of this dispossession but also how to tell the story of why this story has become untellable in so many quarters. Here one finds lament, anguish, anger, and political demands for justice in a set of analyses that are thoughtful, self-reflective, and complex." -- Judith Butler, Maxine Elliot Professor, University of California at Berkeley
List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Note on Transliterations Introduction: The Claims of Memory, by Lila Abu-Lughod and Ahmad H. Sa'di Part I. Places of Memory 1. The Rape of Qula, a Destroyed Palestinian Village, by Susan Slyomovics 2. Mapping the Past, Re-creating the Homeland: Memories of Village Places in pre-1948 Palestine, by Rochelle Davis 3. Return to Half-Ruins: Memory, Postmemory, and Living History in Palestine, by Lila Abu-Lughod Part II. Modes of Memory 4. Iterability, Cumulativity, and Presence: The Relations Figures of Palestinian Memory, by Lena Jayyusi 5. Women's Nakba Stories: Between Being and Knowing, by Rosemary Sayigh 6. The Continuity of Trauma and Struggle: Recent Cinematic Representations of the Nakba, by Haim Bresheeth Part III. Faultlines of Memory 7. The Secret Visitations of Memory, by Omar Al-Qattan 8. Gender of Nakba Memory, by Isabelle Humphries and Laleh Khalili 9. Memories of Conquest: Witnessing Death in Tantura, by Samera Esmeri 10. The Politics of Witness: Remembering and Forgetting 1948 in Shatila Camp, by Diana K. Allan Afterword. Reflections on Representations, History, and Moral Accountability, by Ahmad H. Sa'di Bibliography Contributors Index
Ahmad H. Sa'di is a senior lecturer in the Department of Politics and Government at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. He has published widely on political, social, and economic aspects of the lives of Palestinians in Israel.Lila Abu-Lughod is professor of anthropology and gender studies at Columbia University. Her books include Veiled Sentiments: Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin Society; Writing Women's Worlds: Bedouin Stories; and Dramas of Nationhood: The Politics of Television in Egypt. Lila Abu Lughod: Professor of Anthropology and Women's Studies at Columbia University. She has published or edited many books including: Veiled Sentiments: Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin Society (California, 2000); Writing Women's World: Bedouin Stories (California, 1993); Remaking Women: Feminism and Modernity in the Middle East (Princeton, 1998); and, Dramas of Nationhood: The Politics of Television in Egypt (Chicago, 2004). Although most of her ethnographic research has been on Egypt, she has begun to publish on Palestinian documentary film, ethnography, and memory. Her articles have appeared in journals including the American Anthropologist, American Ethnologist, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Social Text, and Feminist Studies. Ahmad H. Sa'di: Lecturer in the department of Politics and Government at Ben-Gurion University, Israel. His work has focused on democratic politics and issues of citizenship, the impact of local political organizations and personalities on the course of political and social history, on the problems of majority/minority relations, and on labor and economic conditions of Israel's Arab 'minority.' He has published numerous articles in journals including Sociology; Work, Employment and Society; International Journal of Intercultural Relations; Social Identities; Arab Studies Quarterly; Asian Journal of Social Sciences; Social Text; The Japan Center For Area Studies Review; Israel Studies; and British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies. His most recent work has been on Al-Nakbah in Palestinian collective memory.
" Nakba provides crucial insights into the Palestinian-Israeli situation yesterday, today, and, perhaps, tomorrow. This is a voice which needs to be heard by everyone interested in resolving this conflict." -- Ahdaf Soueif, author of The Map of Love "This is a voice which needs to be heard by everyone interested in resolving this conflict." "Essential reading..." "[A] moving collection of writings on the expulsion of the Palestinian people from their homeland in 1948... Highly recommended." -- CHOICE "The editors... have compiled a collection of impressive contributions that weave together the rich and changing tapestry of Palestinian memories." -- Randa Farah, H-Levant
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