Centuries of Social History in Palestine | Professor Beshara Doumani
In conversation with Professor Beshara Doumani, the inaugural Mahmoud Darwish Professor of Palestinian Studies at Brown University.
Professor Doumani gives us a critical historical context for what's happening in Palestine right now, explaining why and how Palestine's colonial history is relevant today. He draws a stark contrast between pre-WWI Gaza and the besieged Gaza of the present day and addresses important events in between.
This episode was recorded on October 24 at 20:44 Palestine time.
Please note, that we are dedicating all the Afikra podcast programming to special podcast episodes relevant to understanding the historical context of what is happening in Palestine. Each episode will be recorded in real-time and uploaded to YouTube and anywhere you get your podcasts.
About Beshara Doumani:
Beshara Doumani is the inaugural Mahmoud Darwish Professor of Palestinian Studies, the first chair of its kind dedicated to this field of study. He is also the founding director (2012-2018) of Brown's Center for Middle East Studies (CMES), and founder of New Directions for Palestinian Studies, a CMES initiative since 2012. From 2012-2020 he was the Joukowsky Family Distinguished Professor of Modern Middle East History.
Doumani's research focuses on groups, places, and time periods marginalized by mainstream scholarship on the early modern and modern Middle East, with a focus on the social, economic, and legal history of the Eastern Mediterranean. He also writes on the topics of academic freedom, and the Palestinian condition. His books include Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900, and Family Life in the Ottoman Mediterranean: A Social History. He is currently working on the modern history of the Palestinians through the social life of stone.
Doumani is the editor of a book series on Palestinian Studies published by the University of California Press, co-editor of the Jerusalem Quarterly, and editorial committee member of the Journal of Palestine Studies. From 2009-2011, Doumani led a team that produced a strategic plan for the establishment of the Palestinian Museum. In 2015, Doumani received the Sawyer Seminar award from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for the proposal, Displacement and the Making of the Modern World: Histories, Ecologies, and Subjectivities.
THIS SERIES IS PART OF THE AFIKRA PODCAST NETWORK
Palestinian history and culture will not be erased. History warns us how media's dehumanizing rhetoric can pave the way for targeted aggression and allow society to permit atrocities as grave as genocide. It is resolutely within our mission to counteract this dehumanizing narrative. Afikra has always stood in unwavering solidarity with our Palestinian sisters & brothers and individuals of all nationalities and faiths around the world who bravely protest the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine and condemn the state violence of the Israeli colonial settler project.
After the events of October 7, 2023 it felt impossible to go on with the podcast like business as usual. So we dedicated The afikra Podcast programming to special episodes relevant to understanding the historical context to what is happening in Palestine. Each episode was recorded in real-time and uploaded to YouTube and everywhere you get your podcasts. For most of these, the time of recording is key to understanding the context in which these conversations took place so make sure to refer to these and to check out all of these highly informative conversations with guests who are from completely different disciplines and have generously shared their time and insight in these dark times.
And as we entered the new year and the atrocities continue, we deemed it necessary to create an exclusive series dedicated to Palestinian history and culture. This is how this podcast came about and will continue to exist so long as the fight for liberation and peace continues.
