Palestine in Literature and Film

In this class we will read and watch Palestinian novels, drawings, short stories, films, and poems from the 1960s to the early 2000s: Mahmoud Darwish, Anton Shammas, Samira Azzam, Naji al-Ali, Elia Suleiman, Emile Habibi, Sayed Kashua, and Adania Shibli. We will also read historical context, criticism, and theory written by Palestinian scholars in 2025 (and 1967): Ghassan Kanafani, Samer El-Saber and Abdalla Bayyari. Class sessions will be a mixture of discussion and lecture. The course will be reading-heavy but writing-light (no papers; two proctored exams) and there are no prerequisites for any knowledge of the content or writing skills.