Greg Burris | Northwestern University in Qatar (original) (raw)

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Books by Greg Burris

Temple University Press, 2019

Papers by Greg Burris

ARTMargins

This article explores the connections between dreams, cinema, and Palestine. Drawing upon the wor... more This article explores the connections between dreams, cinema, and Palestine. Drawing upon the work of Ghassan Hage, the author argues that dreams and cinema should not be valued only for their connection to resistance and that these phenomena can sometimes reveal unoccupied spaces, even in occupied Palestine. The author then turns to two documentary films: Mohammad Malas’ The Dream (1987) and Mais Darwazah's My Love Awaits Me by the Sea (2013). Whereas the former film documents the dreams that haunt Palestinians at night, the latter investigates those dreams that follow them throughout the day. Through these dreams, both films stage an encounter with the unoccupied.

Lateral, 2021

The recent arrival in Israel of thousands of refugees from countries like Eritrea, Ethiopia, and ... more The recent arrival in Israel of thousands of refugees from countries like Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Sudan has triggered a spate of hate crimes and mob violence. Asked about these asylum seekers in 2012, Likud-party member Miri Regev called them a "cancer." For this comment, she later apologized—not to the African asylumseekers but to Israeli cancer survivors, and she expressed regret for comparing them to Africans. Around that same time, Interior Minister Eli Yishai of the Shas Party told a reporter that "this country belongs to us, to the white man." Continuing on, he stated that he would use "all the tools [necessary] to expel the foreigners, until not one infiltrator remains." While the racial dynamics of Israel have been thoroughly examined with respect to both intra-Jewish tensions (Ashkenazi supremacy) and the Palestinian issue (white settler-colonialism), in this essay, I want to theorize Israeli whiteness with respect to the African refugees. Specifically, I will examine two recent Israeli documentaries dealing with African refugees—Hotline (dir. Silvina Landsmann, 2015) and Between Fences (dir. Avi Mograbi, 2016). Both openly demonstrate solidarity with the African asylum-seekers, but they do so in different ways, and if the former film leaves the racial hierarchies of Zionism intact, the latter works to shatter them.

Cinema Journal, 2015

At the 1969 Chicago Conspiracy Trial, Black Panther Party cofounder Bobby Seale was ordered chain... more At the 1969 Chicago Conspiracy Trial, Black Panther Party cofounder Bobby Seale was ordered chained and gagged after asserting the right to represent himself. This article examines film portrayals of this event to trace a lineage of resistance—its conception, its universalization, and its perpetuation across time. By melding together political and psychoanalytic approaches to cinema, I argue that film can serve to imbue Seale’s struggle with lasting relevance, bringing attention to the holes perforating power’s foundations and connecting the oppressions of the past with the oppressions of the present.

Quarterly Review of Film and Video, 2011

In this world America must learn to distinguish among our true friends who will be with us and we... more In this world America must learn to distinguish among our true friends who will be with us and we with them through thick and thin [.. .] and unrelenting enemies who will try to destroy us unless we destroy them first.-Samuel P. Huntington (quoted in Kaplan 82) The Clash of Civilizations' thesis is a gimmick like 'The War of the Worlds', better for reinforcing defensive self-pride than for [a] critical understanding of the bewildering interdependence of our time.-Edward W. Said (13) "Images found on our television and motion picture screens cannot be viewed in isolation from the political climate of the nation that produces them." When Vito Russo wrote these words in The Celluloid Closet (248), he was referring specifically to public attitudes towards homosexuality and their reflection in film; his basic message, however, is actually far more universal. As cultural artifacts, films-like all other modes of human expression-are subject to the ideas, contradictions, and behavior of the societies that create them, and as societies change and evolve, so too does the cinema. This is also true on an ideological level. Filmmakers, whether consciously or not, create collectively shared and yet at the same time deeply personal visions that serve to bolster or-more rarely-obliterate society's dominant ideological assumptions. Thus, films that are quite different in terms of genre, style, or subject may actually be bracketed together as ideological twins. In an article first published in 1977, Robin Wood came to this same conclusion by comparing two seemingly different films-Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life (1946) and Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt (1943)-and suggesting that both works subvert the traditional ideological values of classical Hollywood cinema. Thus, for Wood, film genres "represent different strategies for dealing with the same ideological tensions" ("Ideology, Genre, Auteur," 47). More than three decades later, his astute observation is still entirely valid.

Journal of Popular Film and Television, 2008

Filmmakers have treated the Turk as a canvas on which to project the fears of their audiences. By... more Filmmakers have treated the Turk as a canvas on which to project the fears of their audiences. By examining a number of films and popular television series, the author demonstrates that, like the Monster of reactionary horror films, the Turk of cinema serves to reaffirm the traditional values of the audience’s society.

Middle Eastern Studies, 2007

The question of who is included in a nation-the Self-is inextricably linked to the question of wh... more The question of who is included in a nation-the Self-is inextricably linked to the question of who is not included-the Other. While membership in a nation is guaranteed to those sharing certain similarities, non-members are identified by their perceived differences. Thus, the tenth century Arab traveller Ahmad ibn Fadlan declared the Rus to be 'the filthiest of God's creatures' who, unlike Muslims, did not even perform ablutions to cleanse themselves of ritual impurity (jan abah); 1 militant Rwandan Hutus urged supporters to attack Tutsis who were identified as 'the people with long noses, who are tall and slim and want to dominate us'; 2 and Jacques Chirac infamously complained about 'le bruit et l'odeur' of immigrants to his country. 3 Whatever the shibboleths of national inclusion may be, it is clear that the presence of an Other is often-if not always-necessary for the formation of a cohesive national consciousness. As Stuart Hall has argued, 'Only when there is an Other can you know who you are.' 4 It is curious then that the adherents of a deeply nationalist ideology would attempt to exclude and ostracize fellow members of their own national community. 5 However, this is found to be the case in the treatment of the Turkish left by pan-Turkists in Turkey. Although both groups lived together as neighbours from birth, spoke the same language, practised the same religion, were raised with the same customs, and were physically indistinguishable from one another, Turkish leftists deserved-at least in pan-Turkist eyes-to be stripped of their very identity as Turks, a process which ultimately contributed to a downward spiral of violence and factional fighting between Turkish leftists and rightists in the 1970s. We are thus presented with a paradox: why would pan-Turkists have sought to demonize fellow members of the very nation they fervently declared to be 'capable, intelligent, manly, brave, and heroic from birth'? 6 It is my contention that pan-Turkists aimed to delegitimize the Turkic credentials of their leftist and communist rivals for two primary reasons: (a) to discredit the leftist political platform (thereby bolstering their own); and (b) to maintain a nationalist zeal for the entirety of the Turkic nation without being obliged to lend support to their leftist opponents. 7 It will be argued that this metaphysical expulsion was carried out through a process of mythmaking in which pan-Turkists became the nation's greatest heroes, the leftists its greatest villains. 8

Book Chapters by Greg Burris

Global Raciality: Empire, PostColoniality, DeColoniality, 2018

Futures of Black Radicalism, 2017

Online Editorials by Greg Burris

Bright Lights Film Journal, 2019

Temple University Press, 2019

ARTMargins

This article explores the connections between dreams, cinema, and Palestine. Drawing upon the wor... more This article explores the connections between dreams, cinema, and Palestine. Drawing upon the work of Ghassan Hage, the author argues that dreams and cinema should not be valued only for their connection to resistance and that these phenomena can sometimes reveal unoccupied spaces, even in occupied Palestine. The author then turns to two documentary films: Mohammad Malas’ The Dream (1987) and Mais Darwazah's My Love Awaits Me by the Sea (2013). Whereas the former film documents the dreams that haunt Palestinians at night, the latter investigates those dreams that follow them throughout the day. Through these dreams, both films stage an encounter with the unoccupied.

Lateral, 2021

The recent arrival in Israel of thousands of refugees from countries like Eritrea, Ethiopia, and ... more The recent arrival in Israel of thousands of refugees from countries like Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Sudan has triggered a spate of hate crimes and mob violence. Asked about these asylum seekers in 2012, Likud-party member Miri Regev called them a "cancer." For this comment, she later apologized—not to the African asylumseekers but to Israeli cancer survivors, and she expressed regret for comparing them to Africans. Around that same time, Interior Minister Eli Yishai of the Shas Party told a reporter that "this country belongs to us, to the white man." Continuing on, he stated that he would use "all the tools [necessary] to expel the foreigners, until not one infiltrator remains." While the racial dynamics of Israel have been thoroughly examined with respect to both intra-Jewish tensions (Ashkenazi supremacy) and the Palestinian issue (white settler-colonialism), in this essay, I want to theorize Israeli whiteness with respect to the African refugees. Specifically, I will examine two recent Israeli documentaries dealing with African refugees—Hotline (dir. Silvina Landsmann, 2015) and Between Fences (dir. Avi Mograbi, 2016). Both openly demonstrate solidarity with the African asylum-seekers, but they do so in different ways, and if the former film leaves the racial hierarchies of Zionism intact, the latter works to shatter them.

Cinema Journal, 2015

At the 1969 Chicago Conspiracy Trial, Black Panther Party cofounder Bobby Seale was ordered chain... more At the 1969 Chicago Conspiracy Trial, Black Panther Party cofounder Bobby Seale was ordered chained and gagged after asserting the right to represent himself. This article examines film portrayals of this event to trace a lineage of resistance—its conception, its universalization, and its perpetuation across time. By melding together political and psychoanalytic approaches to cinema, I argue that film can serve to imbue Seale’s struggle with lasting relevance, bringing attention to the holes perforating power’s foundations and connecting the oppressions of the past with the oppressions of the present.

Quarterly Review of Film and Video, 2011

In this world America must learn to distinguish among our true friends who will be with us and we... more In this world America must learn to distinguish among our true friends who will be with us and we with them through thick and thin [.. .] and unrelenting enemies who will try to destroy us unless we destroy them first.-Samuel P. Huntington (quoted in Kaplan 82) The Clash of Civilizations' thesis is a gimmick like 'The War of the Worlds', better for reinforcing defensive self-pride than for [a] critical understanding of the bewildering interdependence of our time.-Edward W. Said (13) "Images found on our television and motion picture screens cannot be viewed in isolation from the political climate of the nation that produces them." When Vito Russo wrote these words in The Celluloid Closet (248), he was referring specifically to public attitudes towards homosexuality and their reflection in film; his basic message, however, is actually far more universal. As cultural artifacts, films-like all other modes of human expression-are subject to the ideas, contradictions, and behavior of the societies that create them, and as societies change and evolve, so too does the cinema. This is also true on an ideological level. Filmmakers, whether consciously or not, create collectively shared and yet at the same time deeply personal visions that serve to bolster or-more rarely-obliterate society's dominant ideological assumptions. Thus, films that are quite different in terms of genre, style, or subject may actually be bracketed together as ideological twins. In an article first published in 1977, Robin Wood came to this same conclusion by comparing two seemingly different films-Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life (1946) and Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt (1943)-and suggesting that both works subvert the traditional ideological values of classical Hollywood cinema. Thus, for Wood, film genres "represent different strategies for dealing with the same ideological tensions" ("Ideology, Genre, Auteur," 47). More than three decades later, his astute observation is still entirely valid.

Journal of Popular Film and Television, 2008

Filmmakers have treated the Turk as a canvas on which to project the fears of their audiences. By... more Filmmakers have treated the Turk as a canvas on which to project the fears of their audiences. By examining a number of films and popular television series, the author demonstrates that, like the Monster of reactionary horror films, the Turk of cinema serves to reaffirm the traditional values of the audience’s society.

Middle Eastern Studies, 2007

The question of who is included in a nation-the Self-is inextricably linked to the question of wh... more The question of who is included in a nation-the Self-is inextricably linked to the question of who is not included-the Other. While membership in a nation is guaranteed to those sharing certain similarities, non-members are identified by their perceived differences. Thus, the tenth century Arab traveller Ahmad ibn Fadlan declared the Rus to be 'the filthiest of God's creatures' who, unlike Muslims, did not even perform ablutions to cleanse themselves of ritual impurity (jan abah); 1 militant Rwandan Hutus urged supporters to attack Tutsis who were identified as 'the people with long noses, who are tall and slim and want to dominate us'; 2 and Jacques Chirac infamously complained about 'le bruit et l'odeur' of immigrants to his country. 3 Whatever the shibboleths of national inclusion may be, it is clear that the presence of an Other is often-if not always-necessary for the formation of a cohesive national consciousness. As Stuart Hall has argued, 'Only when there is an Other can you know who you are.' 4 It is curious then that the adherents of a deeply nationalist ideology would attempt to exclude and ostracize fellow members of their own national community. 5 However, this is found to be the case in the treatment of the Turkish left by pan-Turkists in Turkey. Although both groups lived together as neighbours from birth, spoke the same language, practised the same religion, were raised with the same customs, and were physically indistinguishable from one another, Turkish leftists deserved-at least in pan-Turkist eyes-to be stripped of their very identity as Turks, a process which ultimately contributed to a downward spiral of violence and factional fighting between Turkish leftists and rightists in the 1970s. We are thus presented with a paradox: why would pan-Turkists have sought to demonize fellow members of the very nation they fervently declared to be 'capable, intelligent, manly, brave, and heroic from birth'? 6 It is my contention that pan-Turkists aimed to delegitimize the Turkic credentials of their leftist and communist rivals for two primary reasons: (a) to discredit the leftist political platform (thereby bolstering their own); and (b) to maintain a nationalist zeal for the entirety of the Turkic nation without being obliged to lend support to their leftist opponents. 7 It will be argued that this metaphysical expulsion was carried out through a process of mythmaking in which pan-Turkists became the nation's greatest heroes, the leftists its greatest villains. 8

Global Raciality: Empire, PostColoniality, DeColoniality, 2018

Futures of Black Radicalism, 2017

Bright Lights Film Journal, 2019

Media Industries Project , 2013

Engar Stjörnur (No Stars), 2021

A discussion of Palestine, Palestinian cinema, the Beirut port explosion, and Icelandic cinema

afrika Zoom Conversations, 2020

Discussion of the book THE PALESTINIAN IDEA: FILM, MEDIA, AND THE RADICAL IMAGINATION

New Books Network podcast, 2020

Interview with Interviewed by Kirk Meighoo about the book THE PALESTINIAN IDEA: FILM, MEDIA, AND ... more Interview with Interviewed by Kirk Meighoo about the book THE PALESTINIAN IDEA: FILM, MEDIA, AND THE RADICAL IMAGINATION

Jadaliyya, 2020

Discussion of the book THE PALESTINIAN IDEA: FILM, MEDIA, AND THE RADICAL IMAGINATION

Texarkana Gazette, 2019

Discussion of the book THE PALESTINIAN IDEA: FILM, MEDIA, AND THE RADICAL IMAGINATION