Culture and Conflict: Literature and Film from Israel/Palestine
| Module title | Culture and Conflict: Literature and Film from Israel/Palestine |
|---|---|
| Module code | ARA3201 |
| Academic year | 2019/0 |
| Credits | 15 |
| Module staff | Professor Christina Phillips (Convenor) |
| Duration: Term | 1 | 2 | 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Duration: Weeks | 12 |
| Number students taking module (anticipated) | 20 |
|---|
Module description
This module explores modern Palestinian and Israeli literature and film in dialogue with the history and politics of Israel/Palestine. War, violence, trauma, settlement, exile, migration, nation-building, identity-construction and other aspects of modern Israeli and Palestinian experience are reflected, explored and problematised in the cultural production of Israeli and Palestinian writers, poets and film-makers. In this module you will analyse key works (films, novels, stories, poems) as responses to, and interventions into, the Arab-Israeli conflict and political and cultural milieu of Israel/Palestine. In so doing you will explore a broad range of themes and intersections relating to space, gender, memory, resistance, nationalism, diaspora, environment and ecology, psychoanalysis, and the colonial/postcolonial.
The module is aimed at students seeking to broaden their understanding of Israel/Palestine through cultural and literary perspectives. It is equally aimed at students of literature and film interested in relations between culture, politics and resistance, and in postcolonial and world literature. Texts are studied in translation. No prior knowledge of Arabic or Hebrew is required.
Module aims - intentions of the module
You will gain in-depth and nuanced understanding of the history, culture and literature of Israel/Palestine. You will become versed in a variety of critical theories drawn from nationalism, postcolonialism, ecocriticism, gender studies and psychoanalysis. You will gain familiarity with a range of works that are important not only in Israel/Palestine but in postcolonial and world literature contexts. You will also develop skills that are widely applicable beyond literary and cultural study, namely critical analysis, argumentation, presenting and academic writing.
Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)
ILO: Module-specific skills
On successfully completing the module you will be able to...
- 1. Demonstrate in-depth knowledge and contextual understanding of modern literature and film of Israel/Palestine
- 2. Analyse the cultural production of modern Israel/Palestine from a range of critical perspectives (e.g. political, psychoanalytical, feminist, ecocritical, aesthetic, postcolonial)
ILO: Discipline-specific skills
On successfully completing the module you will be able to...
- 3. Compare, contrast and analyse a wide range of cultural material (visual, textual), drawing on relevant critical theories and concepts.
- 4. Demonstrate nuanced understanding of the intersections between culture, history and politics
ILO: Personal and key skills
On successfully completing the module you will be able to...
- 5. Through seminar work, demonstrate communication and presentation skills, the ability to work in groups, and competency in handling complex and varying material
- 6. Through individual research and assignments, demonstrate the ability to work independently, retrieve, sift and intergrate primary and secondary sources, construct coherent arguments, write lucidly, and apply research and bibliographic skills.
Syllabus plan
Whilst the module’s precise content may vary from year to year, it is envisaged that the syllabus will cover some or all of the following topics:
- Imagining Community (religious, linguistic, national, diasporic)
- Politics of Representation
- Fragmented Identities
- Bride, Mother, Nation
- Feminist Perspectives
- Contested Masculinities
- Landscape and Ecology
- Hydropolitics
- Myths, Heroes and Metanarratives
- Public/Private Intersections
- Border Crossings
Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)
| Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities | Guided independent study | Placement / study abroad |
|---|---|---|
| 22 | 128 | 0 |
Details of learning activities and teaching methods
| Category | Hours of study time | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities | 22 | 11 x 2 hour classes. You will need to complete all readings prior to class and be ready to participate. On some occasions you may be asked to participate. |
| Guided Independent Study | 68 | Reading and research |
| Guided Independent Study | 55 | Completing assignments |
| Guided Independent Study | 5 | Preparing group presentation |
Formative assessment
| Form of assessment | Size of the assessment (eg length / duration) | ILOs assessed | Feedback method |
|---|---|---|---|
| Group presentation | 15 minutes | 1-5 | Verbal feedback from peers and teacher |
Summative assessment (% of credit)
| Coursework | Written exams | Practical exams |
|---|---|---|
| 90 | 0 | 10 |
Details of summative assessment
| Form of assessment | % of credit | Size of the assessment (eg length / duration) | ILOs assessed | Feedback method |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Essay (critical analysis) | 45 | 2500 words | 1-4, 6 | Full written (verbal on request) |
| Essay (comparative thematic analysis, or creative writing project) | 45 | 2500 words | 1-4, 6 | Full written (verbal on request) |
| Seminar participation | 10 | 11 x 2hr seminars | 1-5 | Oral |
Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)
| Original form of assessment | Form of re-assessment | ILOs re-assessed | Timescale for re-assessment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Essay (critical analysis) | Essay (2500 words) | 1-4, 6 | August/September reassessment period |
| Essay (comparative thematic analysis, or creative writing project) | Essay (2500 words) | 1-4, 6 | August/September reassessment period |
| Seminar participation | See notes | 1-5 | See notes |
Re-assessment notes
Re-assessment notes: There can be no referral/deferral of the seminar participation element of assessment (10% of mark) – the original mark will be carried over in the event of referral/deferral of other elements of assessment.
Indicative learning resources - Basic reading
Pre-module reading
Theodor Herzl, The Jewish State (London: Penguin, 2010 [1896])
Edward Said, The Question of Palestine, 2nd edn (London: Vintage, 1992)
Amos Oz, A Tale of Love and Darkness
Ghada Karmi, In Search of Fatima
Primary texts (please note that these will vary from year to year)
Liana Badr, A Compass for the Sunflower (1979, trans. 1989)
Mourid Barghouti, I Saw Ramallah
Mahmud Darwish, selected poems
Orly Castel-Bloom, An Egyptian Novel (2015, trans. 2017)
Emile Habibi, The Secret Life of Saeed the Pessoptimist (1974, trans. 1985)
Ghassan Kanafani, Men in the Sun (1962, trans. 1978)
Sahar Khalifeh, Wild Thorns (1978, trans. 1985)
Anton Shammas, Arabesques (1986, trans. 2001)
Raja Shehadeh, Palestinian Walks (2008)
Oz Shelach, Picnic Grounds: A Novel In Fragments (2003)
Fedwa Touqan, selected poems
S. Yizhar, Khirbet Khizeh (1949, trans. 2008)
Wedding in Galilee (film, 1987, dir. Michel Khleifi)
Lemon Tree (film, 2008, dir. Eran Riklis)
Divine Intervention (film, 2002, dir. Elia Suleiman)
Further Reading
Weekly readings will be published on the ELE pages. Likewise journal articles.
The following is a list of books recommended for further reading:
Abdel-Malak, Kamal, The Rhetoric of Violence: Arab-Jewish Encounters in Contemporary Palestinian Literature and Film (Palgrave, 2005).
Abramson, G., Drama and Ideology in Modern Israel (Cambridge, 1998).
Bernard, Anna, Rhetorics of Belonging: Nation, Narration, and Israel/Palestine (Liverpool University Press, 2013).
Cleary, Joe, Literature, Partition and the Nation-State: Culture and Conflict In Ireland, Israel and Palestine (Cambridge University Press, 2002).
Dabashi, Hamid, Dreams of a Nation: On Palestinian Cinema (Verso Books, 2007).
Elad-Boukila, Ami, Modern Palestinian Literature and Culture (Routledge, 1999).
Gelvin, J.L., The Israel-Palestine Conflict: One Hundred Years of War (Cambridge University Press, 2007).
Gertz, Nurith, Palestinian Cinema: Landscape, Trauma, and Memory (Indiana University Press, 2008).
Ginsberg, Terri, Visualizing the Palestinian Struggle: Towards a Critical Analytic of Palestine Solidarity Film (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016).
Halkin, Simon, Modern Hebrew Literature: From the Enlightenment to the Birth of the State of Israel (Schocken Books, 2nd edn. 1970).
Harlow, Barbara, Resistance Literature (Routledge, 1987).
Jayyusi, Salma Khadra, ‘Introduction’, Anthology of Modern Palestinian Literature (Columbia University Press, 1994).
Khalidi, Rashid, The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood (Boston:Beacon Press, 2006).
Matar, Dina, and Zahera Harb, Narrating Conflict in the Middle East: Discourse, Image and Communications Practices in Lebanon and Palestine (I.B.Tauris, 2013).
Morag, Raya, Waltzing with Bashir: Perpetrator Trauma and Cinema (I.B.Tauris, 2013).
Pape, Ilan, The Israel/Palestine question (Routledge, 1999).
Peleg, Yaron, Directed by God: Jewishness in Contemporary Israeli Film and Television University of Texas Press, 2016)
_____ . The Politics of Loss and Trauma in Contemporary Israeli Cinema (Routledge, 2015)
Saloul, Ihab, Catastrophe and Exile in the Modern Palestinian Imagination: Telling Memories (Palgrave Macmillan, May 2012).
Snaije, Olivia, and Mitchell Albert, Keep Your Eye on the Wall: Palestinian Landscapes Saqi, 2013).
Shaked, Gershoni, Modern Hebrew Fiction (Bloomington, 2000).
Shindler, Colin, A History of Modern Israel (Cambridge Univ. Press. 2008).
Shohat, Ella, Israeli Cinema: East-West & the Politics of Representation (Texas, 1989).
Talmon, Miri, and Yaron Peleg (eds.), Israeli Cinema: Identities in Motion (University of Texas Press, 2012).
Yosef, Raz, Beyond Flesh: Queer Masculinities and Nationalism in Israeli Cinema (Rutgers University Press, 2004).
| Credit value | 15 |
|---|---|
| Module ECTS | 7.5 |
| Module pre-requisites | None |
| Module co-requisites | None |
| NQF level (module) | 6 |
| Available as distance learning? | No |
| Origin date | 03/02/2019 |
| Last revision date | 03/02/2019 |