WATCH | An Evening with Jumana Manna Event Recording

On 9 December 2023 CPS hosted Jumana Manna for a screening of her film FORAGERS (2022) and an artist talk. The event was co-presented by the Graduate School Architecture, Planning and Preservation.

FORAGERS (2022) depicts the dramas around the practice of foraging for wild edible plants in Palestine/Israel with wry humor and a meditative pace. Shot in the Golan Heights, the Galilee and Jerusalem, it employs fiction, documentary and archival footage to portray the impact of Israeli nature protection laws on these customs. The restrictions prohibit the collection of the artichoke-like ’akkoub and za’atar (thyme), and have resulted in fines and trials for hundreds caught collecting these native plants. For Palestinians, these laws constitute an ecological veil for legislation that further alienates them from their land while Israeli state representatives insist on their scientific expertise and duty to protect. Following the plants from the wild to the kitchen, from the chases between the foragers and the nature patrol, to courtroom defenses, Foragers captures the joy and knowledge embodied in these traditions alongside their resilience to the prohibitive law. By reframing the terms and constraints of preservation, the film raises questions around the politics of extinction, namely who determines what is made extinct and what gets to live on.

Jumana Manna is a visual artist and filmmaker. Her work explores how power is articulated, focusing on the body, land and materiality in relation to colonial inheritances and histories of place. Through sculpture, filmmaking, and occasional writing, Manna deals with the paradoxes of preservation practices, particularly within the fields of archaeology, agriculture and law. Her practice considers the tension between the modernist traditions of categorisation and conservation and the unruly potential of ruination as an integral part of life and its regeneration. Jumana was raised in Jerusalem and lives in Berlin.

View original event page.

ATTEND | Refugee Cities: Symposium on the Urban Dimensions of Forced Displacement

The Refugee Cities Working Group at the Center for the Study of Social Difference, Columbia University, presents an interdisciplinary public symposium, “Refugee Cities: Urban Dimensions of Forced Displacement.”

The Refugee Cities Working Group’s concerns lie at the intersection of urban studies on the one hand and, on the other, the humanistic and social justice-oriented study of the mass movement of people fleeing violence, war, and forced removal. This symposium will focus on the impact of refugees on cities and urban processes, both in the present moment and as a historical phenomenon.

A keynote lecture will take place on the evening of Thursday, April 27, with all other presentations to be scheduled throughout the day on Friday, April 28. All events will take place in person at the Heyman Center for the Humanities, Columbia University, New York.

For complete info about the symposium, click here.
For questions, contact: refugeecitiesCSSD@gmail.com 

ATTEND | "11 Lives: Stories from Palestinian Exile" with Nadia Fahd, Perla Issa, Muhammad Ali Khalidi, and Diane Riskedahl

Join Hearing Palestine and the Institute for Palestine Studies for the launch of 11 Lives: Stories from Palestinian Exile in an online event, featuring Nadia Fahd, Perla Issa, Muhammad Ali Khalidi, and Diane Riskedahl, on March 30th at 12pm. 11 Lives is co-published with the Institute for Palestine Studies and OR Books. 

 "The 11 lives given voice here are unique, each an expression of the myriad displacements that war and occupation have forced upon Palestinians since the Nakba of 1948. At the same time, they form a collective testament of a people driven from their homes and land by colonial occupation. Each story is singular; and each tells the story of all Palestinians.    

As Edward Said argued in 1984, the object of Israel’s colonial warfare is not only material—seeking to minimise Palestinian existence as such—but is also a narrative project that aims to obliterate Palestinian history “as possessed of a coherent narrative direction pointed towards self-determination.”

In these pages, Palestinian refugees narrate their own histories. The product of a creative-writing workshop organized by the Institute for Palestine Studies in Lebanon, 11 Lives tells of children’s adventures in the alleyways of refugee camps, of teenage martyrs and ghosts next-door, of an UNRWA teacher’s dismay at the shallowness of her colleagues, and of the love, labour, and land that form the threads of a red keffiyeh.

What unites these 11 stories is “the inadmissible existence of the Palestinian people” highlighted by Said. Their words persist, as one contributor writes, “between the Nakba and the Naksa, throughout defeats and massacres, love affairs and revolutions.” The stories of Palestinians in exile are also open-ended, and will continue to reverberate across borders until Palestine is free."

ATTEND | FARHA Screening + Convo w/ filmmaker Darin Sallam

Join the Middle East Institute for a screening of FARHA, followed by a conversation with filmmaker Darin Sallam. The conversation will be moderated by Gil Hochberg (MESASS) and Alessandra Amin (Center for Palestine Studies).

DATE
Saturday, April 1, 2023
2:30 PM 5:30 PM

LOCATION
Northwest Corner Building
550 W 120th
New York, NY, 10027

About FARHA
Inspired by true events, FARHA tells the story of a young Palestinian girl whose dream changes from seeking an education in the city to surviving Al-Nakba in Palestine 1948.

DARIN SALLAM holds an MFA from the Red Sea Institute for Cinematic Arts (RSICA), affiliated with the University of Southern California. To her credit are 5 award-winning shorts, including THE DARK OUTSIDE (2012) and THE PARROT (2016). A Berlinale Talent 2021, a Robert Bosch 2015 Film Prize recipient and recently inducted into the prestigious Asia Pacific Screen Academy, Sallam was selected to the 2017 La Cité Internationale des Arts residency in Paris and to the 2018 Global Media Makers fellowship by Film Independent in Los Angeles. She was a jury member at international film festivals and is co-founder & managing partner at the Amman-based production company TaleBox.

Her critically acclaimed debut feature film FARHA (2021) had its world premiere at the 46th Toronto International Film Festival, won 12 awards to date from international film festivals including best film, best director, the jury award, the audience award and the grand prize and started streaming in December 2022 on Netflix worldwide. FARHA was also selected as Jordan’s entry in the International Feature Film category at the 95th Academy Awards (Oscars) in 2023 and achieved a historic first win for Jordan by receiving the Best Youth Film award at the 15th Asia Pacific Screen Awards (APSA), known as “the Asian Oscars”, making Sallam the first Jordanian director ever to be awarded an APSA.

Questions?
Email mei@columbia.edu

WATCH | "Archiving Black Palestinian Solidarity: Visions of Liberation 1968-2021"

In honor of Black History Month, CPS is pleased to share, “Archiving Black Palestinian Solidarity: Visions of Liberation 1968-2021.”

Archival video, 9:50 minutes

This video is a presentation of archival material on key moments of solidarity between Black American and Palestinian political movements from 1968 to 2021. It is an updated version of a work-in-progress started in 2018 by students and faculty at the Center for Palestine Studies, Studio X Amman at Columbia GSAPP, and the Columbia Global Center| Amman. Advised by Lila Abu-Lughod and Nora Akawi and edited by Rahaf Salahat, the video was prepared for an event and panel discussion on "Black-Palestinian Solidarity, 1968-2018" at Columbia University. It was included as a collateral event of Qalandia International IV, whose 2018 theme was Solidarity. For more info about the event "Black-Palestinian Solidarity, 1968-2018" click here.

---

“Black-Palestinian Solidarity, 1968-2018” poster design by Turbo Amman, based on an OSPAAAL designed poster created using Black Panther artist, Emory Douglas's 1968 graphic

ATTEND | Middle East Urbanism Beyond Conflict Conference, GSAPP

Middle East Urbanism Beyond Conflict: Current Research, Ongoing Debates, and Next Directions

Thursday, 16 February 2023 — Register to attend on Zoom
Friday, 17 February 2023 — Register to attend on Zoom

The Post-Conflict Cities Lab at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation is hosting a two-day graduate student conference titled “Middle East Urbanism Beyond Conflict: Current Research, Ongoing Debates, and Next Directions,” to be held on February 16-17, 2023. This interdisciplinary conference seeks to bring together doctoral students and scholars working on issues related to urbanism and the production of space in Middle Eastern and North African cities (MENA). The MENA region has been mostly discussed and narrated from the perspective of conflict and delineated as a space from which theory cannot emerge. However, the critical research coming out from the Middle East and North African cities is providing cutting edge scholarly contributions on how urban space is shaped by a range of actors (including political parties, international aid organizations, religious groups, and NGOs) and a variety of geo-political flows (such as capital, migration, labor, revolutionary solidarities, and militarization) that produce space and the built environment from housing and infrastructure to borders and refugee camps. This emerging body of urban scholarship is contributing to theorizing about the urban condition from the Global South at large. This conference includes panels of graduate students led by faculty discussants along with a faculty roundtable on the current status and future of Middle Eastern urban studies. In coming together for this conference, we look forward to providing the space to push the conversation on urbanism and spatial production in Middle Eastern and North African cities, and the theoretical implications of theorizing about the urban from the MENA region.

Organized by Assistant Professor Hiba Bou Akar with the Post-Conflict City Lab and the Urban Planning Program. Co-sponsored with the Heyman Center for the Humanities, Middle East Institute, Maison Française, Columbia GSAPP and Barnard Urban Studies.

LOCATION
East Gallery, Buell Hall

This event is open to the Columbia University community. The general public must register in advance and confirm COVID-19 vaccination status in compliance with current Columbia University health requirements using this online form.

GSAPP is committed to providing universal access to all of our virtual events. Please contact events@arch.columbia.edu to request disability accommodations. Advance notice is necessary to arrange for some accessibility needs.

ATTEND | How the US Is Planning to Build Its Embassy on Stolen Palestinian Land in Jerusalem

DATE
31 January 2023
1pm NEW YORK
7pm Palestine

ABOUT
The Institute for Palestine Studies, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Institute for Middle East Understanding, and Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel present a discussion on the US State Department's plan to build their embassy on stolen Palestinian land in Jerusalem.

The plan – a violation of international law – entails the embassy's construction on private Palestinian property that has been illegally confiscated by Israel, the owners of which include numerous US citizens. Panelists will outline what the plan entails, its illegality, and what you can do to stop the US government from moving forward with the plan!

This is a remote only event.

SPEAKERS
Dr. Rashid Khalidi is Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University. He is one of the descendants of the original landowners upon whose property in Jerusalem the US government seeks to build their embassy. Dr. Khalidi received his B.A. from Yale University in 1970, and his D.Phil. from Oxford University in 1974. He has taught at the Lebanese University, the American University of Beirut, Georgetown University, and at the University of Chicago. He is past President of the Middle East Studies Association, and the co-editor of the Journal of Palestine Studies. He is also the president of the Institute for Palestine Studies-USA. Khalidi is the author of The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017 (published 2020), winner of the 2020 MEMO Book Award; Brokers of Deceit: How the U.S. has Undermined Peace in the Middle East (2013). He is the co-editor of Palestine and the Gulf(1982), The Origins of Arab Nationalism (1991), and The Other Jerusalem: Rethinking the History of the Sacred City (2020).

Dr. Suhad Bishara is Legal Director and Director of the Land and Planning Rights Unit at Adalah - The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel. She has worked with Adalah since 2001. Dr. Bishara, an expert in land rights and dispossession, has more than twenty years of experience litigating cases before the Israeli Supreme Court and served as lead lawyer in major human rights cases regarding Palestinian citizens of Israel and international humanitarian law cases concerning Palestinians in the 1967 Occupied Territory before the Israeli Supreme Court. She is leading the legal team filing an objection in the Israeli planning authorities against the US government's plan to build their embassy on Palestinian land. She holds an LL.B. from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and an LL.M. in Public Service Law from New York University's School of Law (USA), and recently received a PhD from King's College School of Law in London and teaches Human Rights Law at the college. She also was Palestine & Law Fellow at Columbia University Law School (2014-2015).

Diala Shamas is Senior Staff Attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights. She works on challenging government and law enforcement abuses perpetrated under the guise of national security, both in the U.S. and abroad. Diala has worked at the intersection of surveillance, policing, immigration, and advises social justice movements and advocates as they face suppression efforts at the hands of the state and private actors. Diala has also worked on a range of international human rights issues. This includes human rights and humanitarian law violations in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian Territory, where she has lived and worked extensively, as well refugee policies in Australia and Greece. Diala is a graduate of Yale Law School.

Josh Ruebner is Director of Government Relations at the Institute for Middle East Understanding. He is adjunct lecturer in the Justice and Peace Studies program at Georgetown University and author of Shattered Hopes: Obama's Failure to Broker Israeli-Palestinian Peace and Israel: Democracy or Apartheid State?

APPLY | PARC 2023-2024 Fellowship Application Deadlines Extended

Extended PARC competition deadlines for NEH Fellowship (02/13/23) and U.S. Fellowship (02/06/23):

PARC’s 11th National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) competition for research in the humanities or research that embraces a humanistic approach and methods. Applicants must have earned their PhD or completed their professional training and be U.S. citizens or foreign nationals who have lived in the United States for the last three years. Awards are $5,000 per month for a minimum of four up to a maximum of ten months of research. EXTENDED DEADLINE: Applications are due February 13, 2023.

PARC’s 24th annual U.S. Research Fellowship competition for research that contributes to Palestinian studies. Applicants must be doctoral students or scholars with a PhD and must be U.S. citizens. Any field of research will be considered. Awards are a maximum of $9,000. Research must take place in Palestine, Israel, Jordan, or Lebanon. EXTENDED DEADLINE: Applications are due February 6, 2023.

For complete info, visit the PARC website, here.