Our editors select TMR World Picks. We welcome your suggestions: editor@themarkaz.org
TMR
Conference: Archiving Gaza in the Present
Nov. 30—Dec. 1, Brunei Gallery Lecture Theatre, SOAS, London — more info
This two-day conference will explore the erasure of Gaza’s Palestinian heritage and will focus on the future, bringing together key individuals to discuss the importance of memory—both collective and individual—in terms of cultural identity and legacy. The event features a diverse group of speakers, including lawyers, artists, filmmakers, architects, archaeologists, museum professionals, journalists, poets, and musicians. Download the conference program here.
Leeds Palestinian Film Festival, 10th Edition: Culture as Resistance
Nov 8—Dec 6, Leeds, UK — more info
These are difficult times for Palestinians, but film and the arts can offer hope and inspiration. The Leeds festival celebrates Palestinian cultural expression and its importance in keeping Palestinian identity alive after more than 75 years of displacement, occupation, and destruction. The launch event will feature a screening of No Other Land (2024), a powerful film created by a collective of four young Palestinian-Israeli activists (Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor) that stands as a profound testament to the spirit of creative resistance born out of the harsh realities of military occupation.
Nibal Malshi Live in Concert
Dec 6, Philadelphia, US — more info
Award-winning Palestinian vocalist and multidisciplinary artist Nibal Malshi will feature in an evening of live music in Philadelphia, US, hosted by Al-Bustan Seeds of Culture. Nibal, a celebrated voice in Palestinian music, will be joined by an ensemble of talented local musicians under the musical direction of renowned kanun player Firas Kreik.
ADAB Festival 2024, Second Edition
Dec 6—7, Maison de la Poésie, Paris — more info
A literary festival dedicated to new writing from the Maghreb and the Middle East, ADAB presents the latest generation of writers from the region while paying tribute to great writers of recent decades. For this second edition, the festival celebrates the plurality of literary genres, highlighting the novel, comic strips, essays, and other forms of academic writing.
Mo Amer: Back to Square One
Dec 6, 8, 12, several venues, UK — more info
On the cusp of releasing the highly anticipated Season 2 of MO on Netflix, based on a Palestinian family seeking asylum in Texas, stand-up comedian Mo Amer takes the stage for what he calls “Back to Square One.” Multiple intimate nights of conversation and special guests.
Untold Palestine X DNL
Dec 1—7, Amsterdam & online — more info
De Nieuwe Liefde shares its space with Palestinian artists, makers, initiatives, and allies for a series of events that will include readings by Palestinians from all over the world, an interview with writer Saleem Haddad, a panel discussion about the role of art during the genocide and live music by Rola Azar and Khalil. The event showcases the “Gaza Habibti” photo exhibition by Untold Palestine, a live art performance by visual artist Fuad Al Yamani, and the Palestinian Sound Archive exhibition by Majazz Project.
Palestine, Minneapolis, and the Urgent Word
Dec 9, Minneapolis, US — more info
The Palestine Festival of Literature, in partnership with Mizna, presents an evening of powerful performances and thought-provoking discussions with Mosab Abu Toha, Sarah Aziza, Nick Estes, Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, Dina Omar, Sagirah Shahid, and Danez Smith. These renowned poets will discuss the influence of the written word and the role of literary workers in the US as the genocide of Palestinians continues and Trump returns to the White House.
Abdellah Taïa in Conversation (en français)
Dec 13, Montpellier, France — more info
A literary meeting presented by The Markaz Review with the support of the City of Montpellier with one of the most exciting Moroccan writers of his generation, Abdellah Taïa, who will discuss his latest novel Le Bastion des Larmes, (Édition Julliard, 2024). The book has already won the Prix Décembre and the Prix de la Langue Française 2024. The meeting is organized in partnership with the Fiers de Lettres bookstore and with the help of the Ville de Montpellier. The talk will be in French.
Tunisie : de la révolution à la “démocrature”
Dec 17, in person & online, en français, Paris — more info
Cette conférence se tiendra au CAREP Paris le 17 décembre 2024 à 18h30 en format hybride (présentiel + visioconférence) avec Hatem Nafti, essayiste et membre de l’Observatoire tunisien du populisme, sous la modération de Adlene Mohammedi, directeur scientifique du cabinet AESMA.
Roundtable Discussion: World Arabic Language Day
Dec 18, online — more info
On World Arabic Language Day, The Markaz Bil Arabi is pleased to invite you to our first-ever roundtable in Arabic on Wednesday, December 18th at 1pm EST/ 6pm UK/ 7pm CET.
Egyptian writer and journalist Ahmed Naji will participate in the roundtable, where he will discuss the policies of producing classical Arabic from the 19th century until the age of artificial intelligence. Egyptian writer and novelist Nora Nagi will also participate, where she will discuss the impact of cultural and social factors on shaping the style of female writers, and to what extent language expresses the specificity of the female experience compared to general literature. The roundtable will be moderated by Mohammad Rabie, TMR’s Arabic editor, a novelist, and founding partner of the Khan Aljanub Bookstore in Berlin.
Recommended Book Talks:
Unfinished War: A Journey through Civil War in Yemen
Dec 3, Frontline Club, London — more info
Asmaa Waguih, an independent photojournalist based in her hometown of Cairo, worked for Reuters News Agency for eight years covering the war in Afghanistan and won Reuters Photographer of the Year for her coverage of the Arab Spring in Egypt, Libya, and Syria. Her book, Unfinished War: A Journey through Civil War in Yemen (Helion & Company, 2024), contains more than 150 full-color photographs of the effects of this conflict on everyday life.
Off-White, The Truth About Antisemitism
Dec 10, Frontline Club, London — more info
In her forthcoming new book Off-White: The Truth About Antisemitism (Oneworld, 2025), award-winning journalist and author Rachel Shabi navigates looks beyond the polarizing headlines and political mudslinging, exploring themes such as the contingency of whiteness, the rise of pro-Israel antisemitism and the Palestinian struggle against colonialism.
New & Forthcoming Books:
The Academic Question of Palestine, Middle East Critique, Volume 33, Issue 3 (2024)
Guest-edited by Walaa Alqaisiya and Nicola Perugini, this special edition of The Academic Question of Palestine features 11 essays by academics who address the censorship of Palestinian studies and protests against the war on Gaza in Western universities. Edward Said’s The Question of Palestine (1979) was the first book to narrate and historify the Palestinian experience in English.
Today, a crisis of scholasticide is ever pressing and The Academic Question of Palestine special issue has been published when, as written by the co-editors in the introduction: “thousands of instances of repression against scholarship, scholars, and students working on the question of Palestine” are reported to university authorities or targeted online. In their essays, contributors untangle why liberal rhetoric prioritises Zionist power within universities; in the case of Somdeep Sen’s “‘Axis of Evil’ and the Academic Repression of Palestine Solidarity,” this suppression is linked to the legacy of the War on Terror and its discourses of “good” vs “evil.”
This year, students took action against their universities, with members of the Columbia University Apartheid Divest analyzing their political protest and discussing key takeaways from the struggle. Outside of American academia, other articles focus on the repression of Palestinian support in Austria, Germany, Australia, and Canada, each with particular concerns over supporting Zionism and controlling dialects of genocide. Notably, the launch for The Academic Question of Palestine took place at the London School of Economics, which banned seven students from campus after they had protested in support of Palestine against the school’s ““£89m of ‘egregious investments.’”
—Valeria Berghinz
The Afterlife of Palestinian Images: Visual Remains and the Archive of Disappearance by Azza El Hassan, Palgrave/Macmillan, Dec 2024
In her new book, Palestinian filmmaker Azza El Hassan chronicles her multi-year project in the recovery of Palestinian images which had previously been lost to Israeli looting. In finding this dispersed visual heritage and writing about her experiences, El Hassan develops an archival methodology, which she described at the book’s launch as part of the London Palestinian Film Festival, as “anti disappearance.” It doesn’t record a lost people because the Palestinian nation is not lost. “It wasn’t our past that was being plundered, it [is] our present,” she said, recounting the time her film reels were destroyed during a random search of her home in Ramallah by the IDF. This is one of the many personal memories included in The Afterlife of Palestinian Images, where memoir and film history entwine.
El Hassan considers the pioneering work of the Palestine Film Unit, a militant filmmaking collective which was founded in 1968 and worked until its dissolution in the late 1980s. One of the unit’s founding filmmakers, the revolutionary photographer and cinematographer Hani Jawharieh, is also a key figure for El Hassan. Jawharieh’s work focused on portraying the resistance against Israeli occupation, and he was martyred in 1976 as he was filming combat in Lebanon. El Hassan purposely eschews objective history because, as she explained, “This is my world. When I talk about Palestine, I’m talking about myself.” More than a study of archival film practices, The Afterlife of Palestinian Images is a collection of stories of active resistance.
—Valeria Berghinz
