Sarah Irving | Staffordshire University (original) (raw)

Papers by Sarah Irving

European Cultural Diplomacy and Arab Christians in Palestine, 1918–1948, 2020

A short section introduction to Part I ‘Turning the Tables? Arab Appropriation and Production of ... more A short section introduction to Part I ‘Turning the Tables? Arab Appropriation and Production of Cultural Diplomacy’.

European Cultural Diplomacy and Arab Christians in Palestine, 1918–1948, 2020

Cultural diplomacy is often understood first and foremost as an activity of states and institutio... more Cultural diplomacy is often understood first and foremost as an activity of states and institutions, operationalising culture to wield power and communicate ideologies. This chapter considers the use of the concept firstly in terms of its impact on individuals affected by the activities of cultural diplomacy through education and employment by relevant institutions. Secondly, by examining the potential for such individuals also to act as cultural diplomats themselves, for their own subaltern and resistant ends, by tracking the life-histories of Na’im Shehadi Makhouly and Stephan Hanna Stephan, both Palestinian Christian employees of the British Mandate administration’s Department of Antiquities. This chapter shows how cultural diplomacy can be activated as a means of dissent within a colonial setting, but that its appeal and potential are limited.

Palestine Exploration Quarterly, 2021

The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Activism

Journal of Modern Jewish Studies, 2015

Post-Millennial Palestine

The mythic can be seen as offering a grammar of symbolism and resonance which renders the subject... more The mythic can be seen as offering a grammar of symbolism and resonance which renders the subject of a poem both more comprehensible within a certain moral framework and rich on a cultural and aesthetic level. This chapter focuses on the recent works of Najwan Darwish and argues that, despite his apparent iconoclasm, he remains obliged to confront a constellation of the mythic which closely resembles the themes made famous in the work of an earlier generation of Palestinian poets, such as that of Mahmoud Dawish (no relation). This perspective on Darwish's work analyses the extent to which the newcomer represents a new identity and trajectory in Palestinian poetry. It suggests that his poetry, however rebellious, is in many senses a continuity on earlier themes, but utilises an aesthetic approach which speaks to the concerns and sensibilities of a post-millennial readership.

Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism

Salma Khadra Jayyusi is an anthologist, translator, literary critic, and poet of Palestinian orig... more Salma Khadra Jayyusi is an anthologist, translator, literary critic, and poet of Palestinian origins. A writer and researcher in her own right, she is better known for spearheading major projects aimed at introducing Arabic culture, literature, and history to Western audiences. Via the Project of Translation from Arabic (PROTA) and East–West Nexus programs, she has contributed to and helped to translate and edit dozens of novels, edited collections and anthologies of Arabic poetry, short stories, novellas, and scholarly articles.

Mashriq & Mahjar Journal of Middle East and North African Migration Studies

Journal of Semitic Studies, 2017

Journal of Middle East Women's Studies, 2016

European Cultural Diplomacy and Arab Christians in Palestine, 1918–1948: Between Contention and Connection, 2021

When British forces took Palestine from the Ottomans in 1917, the territory's antiquities were hi... more When British forces took Palestine from the Ottomans in 1917, the territory's antiquities were high on their list of priorities. Fuelled by a long-standing British Protestant interest in-not to say obsession with-the Holy Land, 1 measures to establish control over and soi-disant protection of ancient and historic sites were quickly rolled out. These were in some respects the logical conclusion of decades of European and American archaeological interventions in the region in which investigation of tells 2 and other sites was often paired (especially in the British and American expeditions) with the desire to "prove" Biblical narratives and identify existing Palestinian sites with places named in scripture. But Mandate antiquities policy was also a multi-layered strand of cultural diplomacy, asserting British stewardship of the Holy Land

Cultural Diplomacy and Arabs Christians in Palestine, 1918-1948. Between Contention and Connection, 2021

Collectanea Instituti Anthropos, 2019

From: Collectanea Instituti Anthropos | 51 Translating Wor(l)ds Christianity Across Cultural Boun... more From: Collectanea Instituti Anthropos | 51 Translating Wor(l)ds Christianity Across Cultural Boundaries

Contemporary Levant, 2019

Tourist guides to colonised territories are usually understood as instruments of the coloniser, i... more Tourist guides to colonised territories are usually understood as instruments
of the coloniser, imposing ideas of native inferiority through orientalism and
convictions of primitiveness. This article, however, shows how Palestinian
Arabs and Zionist Jews in the later period of British Mandate rule used
guidebooks, written in English and particularly aimed at a readership of
Commonwealth soldiers on leave, as a means of asserting and conveying
their rival claims to Palestine to popular Anglophone audiences. In
particular, they combined the more conventional coverage of historical
and religious sites with insistence on the modernity and technological
progress to be found amongst their respective cultures and histories. I
understand this as both a tactical usage of the concept of modernity to
intervene in image-making about the Middle East, and as a conscious
effort by Palestinian Arabs and Jews to insist that modern values,
associated in the language of the Mandate and notions of progress, were
inherent in their cultures and social practices.

Jerusalem Quarterly, 2018

Commonwealth Essays & Studies, 2017

This article examines the portrayals of Arab-Jewish romance by Naomi Shihab Nye and Samir El-Yous... more This article examines the portrayals of Arab-Jewish romance by Naomi Shihab Nye and Samir El-Youssef, anglophone authors of Palestinian origin. It identifies differences between their treatment of the theme and that of arabophone and hebraeophone writers, arguing that this stems from their diasporic positionalities and raising some broader questions about how literature by writers of Palestinian origin is currently studied.

Palestine Exploration Quarterly

The scholarly literature on the history of archaeology and archaeological organisations in late n... more The scholarly literature on the history of archaeology and archaeological organisations in late nineteenth/early twentieth century Palestine focuses almost exclusively on the Western excavators and scholars who headed this work. But Arab workers did the bulk of the actual digging, and on a daily basis they were often overseen by fellow Arabs as foremen and gang leaders. This paper applies lessons from relational history as it has been used in Levantine intellectual and labour contexts to understand the roles of two particular men, Yusif ‘abu Selim' Khazin and Yusif Khattar Kanaan, who worked for the Palestine Exploration Fund between 1890 and World War One, acting as foremen, researchers, site directors and many other roles for Frederick Bliss, R.A.S Macalister, and Duncan Mackenzie. Despite their often slim and ghostly presence in the records, in which both men are often referred to only by their shared first name, the writings of Bliss and Macalister reveal them to have been indispensable on-site and as offering insights and knowledge which influenced how both archaeological finds and indigenous life in Palestine was understood.

A B S T R A C T National or ethnic collectivities are often coded in art, propaganda, and other m... more A B S T R A C T National or ethnic collectivities are often coded in art, propaganda, and other media as " female " —passive, possessed, and penetrable by the enemy other. Particularly during times of conflict, the nation or homeland is depicted as a woman whose purity must be protected by men. Feminist explorations of this phenomenon have often focused on the language and practice of sexual violence against women in war. Mary Layoun's discussion of Cypriot fiction raises a different possibility: when women transgress group boundaries and make their own choice to pursue sexual relationships with the other, this rupture of dominant ideologies opens up new ways of thinking about identity but may also end with those disruptions being suppressed and crushed. This article uses Layoun's ideas to inform a close reading of two recent novels written in Arabic, both of which depict Muslim-Jewish amatory relations in a way that counters stereotypical ideas about how such relationships are seen in the Arab world. K E Y W O R D S conflict, Muslim, Jewish

European Cultural Diplomacy and Arab Christians in Palestine, 1918–1948, 2020

A short section introduction to Part I ‘Turning the Tables? Arab Appropriation and Production of ... more A short section introduction to Part I ‘Turning the Tables? Arab Appropriation and Production of Cultural Diplomacy’.

European Cultural Diplomacy and Arab Christians in Palestine, 1918–1948, 2020

Cultural diplomacy is often understood first and foremost as an activity of states and institutio... more Cultural diplomacy is often understood first and foremost as an activity of states and institutions, operationalising culture to wield power and communicate ideologies. This chapter considers the use of the concept firstly in terms of its impact on individuals affected by the activities of cultural diplomacy through education and employment by relevant institutions. Secondly, by examining the potential for such individuals also to act as cultural diplomats themselves, for their own subaltern and resistant ends, by tracking the life-histories of Na’im Shehadi Makhouly and Stephan Hanna Stephan, both Palestinian Christian employees of the British Mandate administration’s Department of Antiquities. This chapter shows how cultural diplomacy can be activated as a means of dissent within a colonial setting, but that its appeal and potential are limited.

Palestine Exploration Quarterly, 2021

The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Activism

Journal of Modern Jewish Studies, 2015

Post-Millennial Palestine

The mythic can be seen as offering a grammar of symbolism and resonance which renders the subject... more The mythic can be seen as offering a grammar of symbolism and resonance which renders the subject of a poem both more comprehensible within a certain moral framework and rich on a cultural and aesthetic level. This chapter focuses on the recent works of Najwan Darwish and argues that, despite his apparent iconoclasm, he remains obliged to confront a constellation of the mythic which closely resembles the themes made famous in the work of an earlier generation of Palestinian poets, such as that of Mahmoud Dawish (no relation). This perspective on Darwish's work analyses the extent to which the newcomer represents a new identity and trajectory in Palestinian poetry. It suggests that his poetry, however rebellious, is in many senses a continuity on earlier themes, but utilises an aesthetic approach which speaks to the concerns and sensibilities of a post-millennial readership.

Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism

Salma Khadra Jayyusi is an anthologist, translator, literary critic, and poet of Palestinian orig... more Salma Khadra Jayyusi is an anthologist, translator, literary critic, and poet of Palestinian origins. A writer and researcher in her own right, she is better known for spearheading major projects aimed at introducing Arabic culture, literature, and history to Western audiences. Via the Project of Translation from Arabic (PROTA) and East–West Nexus programs, she has contributed to and helped to translate and edit dozens of novels, edited collections and anthologies of Arabic poetry, short stories, novellas, and scholarly articles.

Mashriq & Mahjar Journal of Middle East and North African Migration Studies

Journal of Semitic Studies, 2017

Journal of Middle East Women's Studies, 2016

European Cultural Diplomacy and Arab Christians in Palestine, 1918–1948: Between Contention and Connection, 2021

When British forces took Palestine from the Ottomans in 1917, the territory's antiquities were hi... more When British forces took Palestine from the Ottomans in 1917, the territory's antiquities were high on their list of priorities. Fuelled by a long-standing British Protestant interest in-not to say obsession with-the Holy Land, 1 measures to establish control over and soi-disant protection of ancient and historic sites were quickly rolled out. These were in some respects the logical conclusion of decades of European and American archaeological interventions in the region in which investigation of tells 2 and other sites was often paired (especially in the British and American expeditions) with the desire to "prove" Biblical narratives and identify existing Palestinian sites with places named in scripture. But Mandate antiquities policy was also a multi-layered strand of cultural diplomacy, asserting British stewardship of the Holy Land

Cultural Diplomacy and Arabs Christians in Palestine, 1918-1948. Between Contention and Connection, 2021

Collectanea Instituti Anthropos, 2019

From: Collectanea Instituti Anthropos | 51 Translating Wor(l)ds Christianity Across Cultural Boun... more From: Collectanea Instituti Anthropos | 51 Translating Wor(l)ds Christianity Across Cultural Boundaries

Contemporary Levant, 2019

Tourist guides to colonised territories are usually understood as instruments of the coloniser, i... more Tourist guides to colonised territories are usually understood as instruments
of the coloniser, imposing ideas of native inferiority through orientalism and
convictions of primitiveness. This article, however, shows how Palestinian
Arabs and Zionist Jews in the later period of British Mandate rule used
guidebooks, written in English and particularly aimed at a readership of
Commonwealth soldiers on leave, as a means of asserting and conveying
their rival claims to Palestine to popular Anglophone audiences. In
particular, they combined the more conventional coverage of historical
and religious sites with insistence on the modernity and technological
progress to be found amongst their respective cultures and histories. I
understand this as both a tactical usage of the concept of modernity to
intervene in image-making about the Middle East, and as a conscious
effort by Palestinian Arabs and Jews to insist that modern values,
associated in the language of the Mandate and notions of progress, were
inherent in their cultures and social practices.

Jerusalem Quarterly, 2018

Commonwealth Essays & Studies, 2017

This article examines the portrayals of Arab-Jewish romance by Naomi Shihab Nye and Samir El-Yous... more This article examines the portrayals of Arab-Jewish romance by Naomi Shihab Nye and Samir El-Youssef, anglophone authors of Palestinian origin. It identifies differences between their treatment of the theme and that of arabophone and hebraeophone writers, arguing that this stems from their diasporic positionalities and raising some broader questions about how literature by writers of Palestinian origin is currently studied.

Palestine Exploration Quarterly

The scholarly literature on the history of archaeology and archaeological organisations in late n... more The scholarly literature on the history of archaeology and archaeological organisations in late nineteenth/early twentieth century Palestine focuses almost exclusively on the Western excavators and scholars who headed this work. But Arab workers did the bulk of the actual digging, and on a daily basis they were often overseen by fellow Arabs as foremen and gang leaders. This paper applies lessons from relational history as it has been used in Levantine intellectual and labour contexts to understand the roles of two particular men, Yusif ‘abu Selim' Khazin and Yusif Khattar Kanaan, who worked for the Palestine Exploration Fund between 1890 and World War One, acting as foremen, researchers, site directors and many other roles for Frederick Bliss, R.A.S Macalister, and Duncan Mackenzie. Despite their often slim and ghostly presence in the records, in which both men are often referred to only by their shared first name, the writings of Bliss and Macalister reveal them to have been indispensable on-site and as offering insights and knowledge which influenced how both archaeological finds and indigenous life in Palestine was understood.

A B S T R A C T National or ethnic collectivities are often coded in art, propaganda, and other m... more A B S T R A C T National or ethnic collectivities are often coded in art, propaganda, and other media as " female " —passive, possessed, and penetrable by the enemy other. Particularly during times of conflict, the nation or homeland is depicted as a woman whose purity must be protected by men. Feminist explorations of this phenomenon have often focused on the language and practice of sexual violence against women in war. Mary Layoun's discussion of Cypriot fiction raises a different possibility: when women transgress group boundaries and make their own choice to pursue sexual relationships with the other, this rupture of dominant ideologies opens up new ways of thinking about identity but may also end with those disruptions being suppressed and crushed. This article uses Layoun's ideas to inform a close reading of two recent novels written in Arabic, both of which depict Muslim-Jewish amatory relations in a way that counters stereotypical ideas about how such relationships are seen in the Arab world. K E Y W O R D S conflict, Muslim, Jewish

Bulletin of the Society of Francophone Postcolonial Studies, 2019

Review of Translating Frantz Fanon Across Continents and Languages 1st Edition, edited by Kathryn... more Review of Translating Frantz Fanon Across Continents and Languages 1st Edition, edited by Kathryn Batchelor, Sue-Ann Harding (Routledge)

Contemporary Levant, 2019

'Review of On the Arab-Jew, Palestine, and other displacements,' an anthology of writings by Ella... more 'Review of On the Arab-Jew, Palestine, and other displacements,' an anthology of writings by Ella Shohat.

Palestine Exploration Quarterly, 2018

This is why Mahmud Ghanayim’s The Lure of the Title represents such a welcome intervention in the... more This is why Mahmud Ghanayim’s The Lure of the Title represents such a welcome intervention in the study of modern Palestinian literature. Most of the writers studied by Ghanayim in this volume have not appeared in english, and it is exactly these minutiae of language, its range of uses, and the paratextual materials which reveal so much about a book and its context upon which he focuses.

Review of 'Agency and Gender in Gaza: Masculinity, Femininity, and Family during the Second Intif... more Review of 'Agency and Gender in Gaza: Masculinity, Femininity, and Family during the Second Intifada'. Aitemad Muhanna. Farnham: Ashgate, 2013. 222 pages. isbn 9781409454533. Published in July 2016 issue of the Journal of Middle East Women's Studies, jmews.org.

A blog post for Trowelblazers, a network promoting recognition of women in archaeology and earth ... more A blog post for Trowelblazers, a network promoting recognition of women in archaeology and earth sciences, on Palestinian women labourers in late Ottoman archaeological excavations.

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Between 1909 and 1955, the (middle-class, Protestant, German-educated) Jerusalem-based writers, e... more Between 1909 and 1955, the (middle-class, Protestant, German-educated) Jerusalem-based writers, educators and translators Elias Haddad and Stephan Stephan authored at least ten guidebooks and colloquial Palestinian Arabic language manuals aimed at English- and German-speaking readerships. This body of work (which, for both men, accompanied a large corpus of anthropological, literary and historical articles, books and plays) is unusual for its time in comprising writings by Palestinians, aimed at a foreign mass market. These books, aimed at popular audiences, might seem rather functional and pedestrian publications. But, given the political and intellectual environment in which they were published – in terms of the development of Palestinian identity and of broader currents of thought and identity in the Arab world – I contend that they represent a rich source for considering how these 'minor' members of the late Ottoman/Mandate-era Palestinian intelligentsia saw their country and how they chose to present it to constituencies (namely colonial audiences) who could influence events in Palestine. As such, I argue that Haddad and Stephan's work deserves attention as a new facet to the growing study of how diverse Palestinians at this pivotal time articulated and negotiated issues of identity, power and nationhood.

Cultures of Diversity: Arts and Cultural Life in Arab Societies before Independence, University o... more Cultures of Diversity: Arts and Cultural Life in Arab Societies before Independence, University of Edinburgh, December 2015

Between 1936 and 1942 Stephan H. Stephan (1894-after 1948), a Palestinian writer, ethnographer and translator, published in six parts his translation of the Palestine section of the Seyâhatnâme (Book of Travels) by the seventeenth-century explorer Evliya Çelebi (1611-1682). This Turkish work of blended fact, anecdote and fantasy, published in the Quarterly of the Department of Antiquities of the British Mandate governing body, may seem at first glance a somewhat esoteric contribution to historic literature on Palestine. But Stephan's translation of Çelebi is regularly cited in both academic and popular work on Palestinian history, often as a refutation of the 'people without a land' images projected by early supporters of Zionist migration.

The annotations to the first four parts of the translation, however, were written by Stephan's former colleague Leo Aryeh Mayer (1895-1959). Mayer was a Galician Zionist immigrant who, by the time of his collaboration with Stephan, was a professor at the Hebrew University; he became Rector at 1943. So how, in the context of Mandate Palestine in the 1930s, with rising political tensions, should we understand this project with its intertwined origins – a text written about Palestine by a Turkish traveller, translated and explicated three centuries later by a Christian Arab and an Eastern European Zionist Jew? This paper explores the translation's hybrid origins in the light of the personalities involved and of the text's role in creating an image of historical Palestine, and suggests lessons that can be drawn for how we view the intellectual and cultural life of Mandate-era Palestine.

Writing for Liberty, Lancaster University, April 2015 In 1932 Elias Nasrallah Haddad, a Christia... more Writing for Liberty, Lancaster University, April 2015

In 1932 Elias Nasrallah Haddad, a Christian-Arab schoolteacher, writer, translator and anthropologist, published the first direct Arabic translation of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's 1779 play Nathan der Weise. Lessing's play has been widely credited for two centuries for its (at the time) revolutionary message of religious and ethnic tolerance, and its positive portrayal of both Jewish and Muslim characters in the setting of Ayyubid Jerusalem. This paper explores what it might, then, have meant for a Lebanese-Palestinian writer, educated in a German orphanage in Jerusalem and writing in the increasingly tense setting of British Mandate Palestine, to bring the play to an Arabic-speaking audience. Drawing on Haddad's own life and writings, on other Levantine expressions of the themes found in Nathan, and on variant readings of Lessing's work, I seek to analyse Haddad's translation, his introduction and a range of of paratextual materials to think about what Elias Haddad might have been trying to do when he published Nathan al-Hakim.

Discipline(s), Dissent & Dispossession, University of Sussex, September 2013 Activists often cri... more Discipline(s), Dissent & Dispossession, University of Sussex, September 2013

Activists often criticise academics for misrepresenting resistance and abusing their power to 'represent' movements to different audiences. It is therefore ironic to watch activists do the same to people whose resistance they claim to support. This paper proposes a case study of the international Palestine solidarity movement, and a 'hierarchy of representation' in which Western activists act as both exploited and exploiter.
I come to this issue from three perspectives. Firstly, of two decades in social/environmental protest movements – including those employing 'illegal' direct-action tactics – and involvement in debates within those movements about how we should/not engage with academics wanting to 'study us'. Secondly, of over a decade in Palestine solidarity activism and eventual withdrawal from it due to disquiet about some activities and discourses within that movement. And thirdly, as an academic and writer engaged with scholarly work on international Palestine solidarity movement/s, finding that the extent to which much of it bears limited resemblance to her own experiences and observations.
I would like to use my own 'participant observer' status in both activism and academia to reflect on and problematise the products of academic enquiry on the Palestine solidarity movement, and to suggest ways in which my critique of these academic works intersects with debates going on within resistance groups in the UK about academic engagement with activists, debates which often combine anti-intellectual hostility, genuine fear of exposure to the authorities, critiques of academia's collusion with power and being flattered by academic interest. I also want to think about how, in discourses on their exploitation by academia, activists often fail to recognise that they replicate similar power structures through their appropriation of Palestinian suffering and ways of re/presenting the Palestinian struggle. As such, I hope to offer some pertinent observations and questions about a kind of 'hierarchy of representation', in which international activists often appropriate and claim to represent (speak for) Palestinians, and academics appropriate and claim to represent (speak about) activists.

Visions of Egypt, University of Hull, September 2013

Between marginality and participation: Rethinking minorities and majorities in the Middle East, B... more Between marginality and participation: Rethinking minorities and majorities in the Middle East, BRISMES Graduate conference, University of Oxford, May 2013

Centre for the Study of Social & Global Justice seminar series guest lecture, University of Notti... more Centre for the Study of Social & Global Justice seminar series guest lecture, University of Nottingham, February 2013

Journal of Palestinian Christianity, 2023

The call for papers is for two issues: a general issue and special issue. General: Interested ... more The call for papers is for two issues: a general issue and special issue.

General: Interested authors for the general issue are welcome to submit their articles or consult the editorial committee by sending an abstract to the following email j.munayer@bethbc.edu. Please include your name and any institutional and other affiliation with your proposed title, abstract and article. The editors will contact you and discuss further details on accepted proposals and articles. Any questions may be directed to the email above. Submissions can be made in English (5,000-7,000 words) or Arabic (3,500-5,500 words). Deadline for draft articles: 28th of February 2023. The journal’s style guide and other submission guidelines are available at jpc.bethbc.edu.

Special: The second issue will be a special issue on the history of Christian communities in and of Palestine and the relationship with Empire – be it Ottoman, British or others – between 1850 and 1948. How did Palestinian Christian individuals and communities interact with imperial institutions and forces? In what ways have they suffered from or benefitted by imperial dynamics in the region? And what have the implications of these relations been for internal interactions within Christian communities and institutions themselves? Submissions are welcome from all historical perspectives, including political history, historical anthropology, intellectual history or theological and social histories. Submissions can be made in English (5,000-7,000 words) or Arabic (3,500-5,500 words). Deadline for draft articles: 31st August 2023; initial enquiries are welcome to Dr. Sarah Irving at sarah.irving@staffs.ac.uk. The journal’s style guide and other submission guidelines are available at jpc.bethbc.edu.

Programme for 'Palestinian Historians/Historians of Palestine: Writing under the Mandate and beyo... more Programme for 'Palestinian Historians/Historians of Palestine: Writing under the Mandate and beyond', a colloquium at King's College London, June 2018.

Call for papers for 'Palestinian historians/historians of Palestine: writing under the Mandate an... more Call for papers for 'Palestinian historians/historians of Palestine: writing under the Mandate and beyond', a colloquium to be held at King's College London in June 2018.

The reading list for a discursive workshop on the definitions, conceptualisations and uses of the... more The reading list for a discursive workshop on the definitions, conceptualisations and uses of the term Arab Jews, held at the University of Edinburgh's department of Islamic & Middle Eastern Studies, 1sr-2nd July 2016

The term 'Arab Jews' is increasingly used by scholars, campaigners and commentators. But what doe... more The term 'Arab Jews' is increasingly used by scholars, campaigners and commentators. But what does it mean? How does this meaning vary amongst constituencies? What does it mean to be an 'Arab Jew', or a Jew in an Arab society, in different times and places across the Middle East? What diversities – or commonalities – of experience are suggested or hidden when we use this phrase? And how do academic, campaigner and popular understandings of the idea of 'Arab Jews' differ?

This two-day workshop at the Department of Islamic & Middle Eastern Studies, University of Edinburgh, will provide a forum for PhD and Early Career Researchers to debate these issues and develop a deeper understanding of the term, its history, its applicability(/ies) and challenges to it. Sessions will include discussions of Arab Jews as a conceptual and theoretical term, as well as case studies which explore its application and appropriateness over time and space.

by Rebecca Ruth Gould, Sarah Irving, Eylaf Bader Eddin, Moses Kilolo, Aria Fani, omid mehrgan, Brahim El Guabli, Sahar Fathi, Mehrdad Rahimi-Moghaddam, Manuel Yang, Michela Baldo, Bidisha Pal, and Partha Bhattacharjee

The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Activism provides an accessible, diverse, and in many r... more The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Activism provides an accessible, diverse, and in many respects ground-breaking overview of literary, cultural, and political translation across a range of activist contexts. This volume brings together case studies and histories of oppressed and marginalised peoples from more than twenty different languages, ranging across Africa, Asia, the Americas, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe. Part One considers the theoretical foundations of translation and activism. Part Two examines the figure of the interpreter as an activist. Part Three examines the figure of the translator as an activist. Part Four is comprised of autobiographical reflections by translators and writers who bear witness to the stories of oppressed peoples. Part Five engages with translation and activism from a range of legal perspectives focusing on human rights. Part Six introduces a range of case studies of translations into vernacular languages. Part Seven situates translation and activism in the context of migration, with particular attention to refugee experience. Part Eight examines the role of translators in shaping revolution. As the first extended collection to introduce translation and activism from a systematically global perspective, this handbook will serve as a useful guide to translators, writers, scholars, and activists seeking to better understand the agency of language in bringing about political change.

Brill, 2022

'The House of the Priest’ presents and discusses the hitherto unpublished and untranslated memoir... more 'The House of the Priest’ presents and discusses the hitherto unpublished and untranslated memoirs of Niqula Khoury, a senior member of the Orthodox Church and Arab nationalist in late Ottoman and British Mandate Palestine. It discusses the complicated relationships between language, religion, diplomacy and identity in the Middle East in the interwar period. This original annotated translation and accompanying articles provide a thorough explication of Khoury’s memoirs and their significance for the social, political and religious histories of twentieth-century Palestine and Arab relations with the Greek Orthodox church. Khoury played a major role in these dynamics as a leading member of the fight for Arab presence in the Greek-dominated clergy, and for an independent Palestine, travelling in 1937 to Eastern Europe and the League of Nations on behalf of the national movement.

Routledge, 2020

In the book chapter, I explored the Chinese translator Lu Xun from the narrative theory. His tran... more In the book chapter, I explored the Chinese translator Lu Xun from the narrative theory. His translation activities and his concept of ‘hard translation’ were investigated to define him as an activist translator.

European Cultural Diplomacy and Arab Christians in Palestine, 1918-1948 Between Contention and Connection, 2020

This open access book investigates the transnationally connected history of Arab Christian commun... more This open access book investigates the transnationally connected history of Arab Christian communities in Palestine during the British Mandate (1918-1948) through the lens of the birth of cultural diplomacy. Relying predominantly on unpublished sources, it examines the relationship between European cultural agendas and local identity formation processes and discusses the social and religious transformations of Arab Christian communities in Palestine via cultural lenses from an entangled perspective.

The 17 chapters reflect diverse research interests, from case studies of individual archives to chapters that question the concept of cultural diplomacy more generally. They illustrate the diversity of scholarship that enables a broad-based view of how cultural diplomacy functioned during the interwar period, but also the ways in which its meanings have changed. The book considers British Mandate Palestine as an internationalised node within a transnational framework to understand how the complexity of cultural interactions and agencies engaged to produce new modes of modernity.

Scottish Literary Review, 2021

co-edited by Silke Stroh & Manfred Malzahn