A nongovernmental organization, RIWAQ develops alternative architectural practices with the goal of cultivating social change. Founded by architect and writer Suad Amiry, and codirected by Dr. Khaldun Bshara and Shatha Safi, Riwaq has a multidisciplinary, majority-women team. It sees the protection of historic sites as key to the reinterpretation of fragmented landscapes, and as a strategy for the recovery of precolonial identities and memories. Working among architecture, art, and spatial design, Riwaq employs speculative ideas as a means to imagine possibilities for healing a wounded land and reclaiming space. In close collaboration with rural communities in occupied Palestine, Riwaq has shifted the paradigm of architectural conservation toward a multidisciplinary approach that accounts for personal and historical narratives, environmental factors, socioeconomic conditions, and cultural identities. Its honors include the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, the Curry Stone Design Prize, the Prince Claus Award, and the Habitat for the Best Worldwide Architectural Practices. CPS celebrates our colleagues at RIWAQ for their contribution to the 2019 Chicago Architecture Biennale
Upcoming Event: New Jerusalem: Objections, a performance intervention by Hakim Bishara, Tali Keren and Lana Tatour
We are happy to share that Dr. Lana Tatour, the Ibrahim Abu-Lughod post-doctoral fellow at CPS, is participating in an upcoming external event at ISCP.
The event* centers on the video work, New Jerusalem, created by Israeli artist Tali Keren and currently featured in the ISCP exhibition, Paperwork: Administrative Practice in Contemporary Art. Keren, speaking via Skype, will be joined by Palestinian writer and artist Hakim Bishara and Palestinian scholar Dr. Lana Tatour who will respond, resist, and speak about the systems of power addressed in New Jerusalem, and in particular about the way these systems impact the lives of Palestinians.
*This is event is not organized by the Center for Palestine Studies. For inquires, please be in touch with ISCP directly.
Upcoming Event at NYU: On Comparative Settler Colonialisms: J. Kēhaulani Kauanui and Rana Barakat
We are happy to share that Rana Barakat, the Spring 2019 Arcapita Visiting Professor in Modern Arab Studies, is participating in an upcoming event at NYU.
Call for Papers - A Century of Palestinian Nationalism: Modes of Political Organization and Representation since 1919
Columbia Global Centers | Amman is requesting paper proposals to present at the roundtable, A Century of Palestinian Nationalism: Modes of Political Organization and Representation since 1919. Organized in partnership with the Institut Francais Proche Orient (Ifpo), the Institute for Palestine Studies and Al Hekma Association, the roundtable will be held at Columbia Global Centers | Amman on Saturday, December 14 and Sunday, December 15, 2019.
CPS is happy to announce the 8th recipient of the Ibrahim Abu-Lughod Award in Palestine Studies, Dr. Lana Tatour
Launch of the Palestinian Oral History Archive (POHA)
The Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at AUB organized a two day international conference, on June 12 and 13 2019, to launch the Palestinian Oral History Archive (POHA).
To learn more and browse the online collection, visit POHA's website.
Gaza On Screen: An Interview with Film Festival Curator, Nadia Yaqub
This April, Palestine Cuts presented Gaza On Screen, a three-day film festival curated by Nadia Yaqub, Professor and Chair in the Department of Asian Studies and Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at UNC Chapel Hill, showcasing films from Gaza. The program included screenings of 13 short and feature-length films, a masterclass with director Abdel Salam Shehada, a student film showcase and Q&A and an academic panel.
Read an interview with Nadia Yaqub by Laura Charney, a Master’s student in Human Rights at Columbia’s Institute for the Study of Human Rights, about Yaqub’s research and experience curating the Gaza on Screen film festival.
For more information about Gaza On Screen, visit the event listing.






