A Documentary Nakba: Reading Group for Archival Liberation In and Beyond Palestine
Weekly Tuesday sessions from 12pm-1pm ET between February 19, 2024 and May 28, 2024
About
Archivists and archival studies scholars and students are invited to register for a 15 week reading group that will study the destruction and theft of Palestinian archives, and the expropriation and erasure of Palestinian history and documentary culture by the genocidal Israeli state and its western collaborators and supporters, including the United States, Canadian, British, French and German states. The co-convenors of this reading group are Dr. Jamila J. Ghaddar (Dalhousie University) and Dr. James Lowry (City University of New York).
The basis of unity for this reading group is the 2023 Statement on Gaza issued by Librarians and Archivists for Palestine, and endorsed by the Middle East Librarians Association and other organisations. The expectation is that reading group participants will use this engagement to prepare to facilitate their own local reading groups, to be better prepared to assign texts on the plight of the Palestinian archive in their own classes, and/or to incorporate the ideas discussed into their own scholarship, for archival liberation in and beyond Palestine.
The readings have been selected from the Librarians and Archivists with Palestine archive syllabus, Under Pressure: Representation, Information, and The Archive in Palestine (n.d.) and the annotated bibliography, On the Systematic Destruction, Plunder, Theft and Erasure of Palestinian Archives, Libraries & Cultural Heritage by the Israeli State through its National Archives, Library, Heritage, Military & Educational Systems (January 2, 2024) compiled by Dr. Jamila J. Ghaddar, Mariam Kariam, and Lisa Nussey for the International Council on Archives.
To register for the reading group, please send an email to PATRICK.MCGEE58@qmail.cuny.edu by February 5, 2024 that includes your name; contact information; affiliation (if relevant); and 100-200 words explaining your interest in the group and if you have any relevant experience or knowledge. We aim to respond within 48 hours of the deadline.
Please cite this syllabus as: Ghaddar, J.J. & Lowry, J. (2023). "A Documentary Nakba: Reading Group Syllabus for Archival Liberation in and beyond Palestine." Unpublished.
Co-Convenors
Dr. Jamila Ghaddar is a Lebanese feminist, archivist, writer, historian and educator. Currently, she is Assistant Professor at Dalhousie University's Department of Information Science, and founding director of the Archives & Digital Media Lab. Previously, Ghaddar was a Library & Archival Fellow at the Jafet Library at the American University of Beirut where she archived the personal papers of the Arab intellectual credited with coining the term "Nakba", Dr. Constantine Zurayk.
Dr. James Lowry is Associate Professor in information studies at the City University of New York. He is convenor of the Archival Discourses international research network, which is interrogating the Western archival canon, and with Dr. Sumayya Ahmed he co-edits the Routledge Studies in Archives book series.Lowry is the editor of the anthologies Displaced Archives (2017) and Disputed Archival Heritage (2022), both published by Routledge.
Reading List & Schedule
Week 1: Tuesday, February 13, 2024 (12pm-1pm EST)
Doumani, Beshara. 2009. "Archiving Palestine and the Palestinians: The Patrimony of Ihsan Nimr." Jerusalem Quarterly 36 (Winter): 3–12.
Week 2: Tuesday, February 20, 2024 (12pm-1pm EST)
Masalha, Nur. 2012. "Appropriating History: Looting of Palestinian Records, Archives and Library Collections, 1948–2011." In The Palestine Nakba Decolonising History, Narrating the Subaltern, Reclaiming Memory, 135–47. London: Zed Books.
Week 3: Tuesday, February 27, 2024 (12pm-1pm EST)
Sayigh, Rosemary. 2015. "Oral History, Colonialist Dispossession, and the State: The Palestinian Case." Settler Colonial Studies 5 (3): 193–204. https://doi.org/10.1080/2201473X.2014.955945.
Week 4: Tuesday, March 5, 2024 (12pm-1pm EST)
Rayan, Tam. (2020) "Chapter 4: History Belongs to Those Who Archive It + Conclusion: Mitigating the Bulldozer of History." In Archival imperialism: an analysis of racial hierarchy in the Six Days War Files. Master Thesis, University of Toronto, 35-55.
Week 5: Tuesday, March 19, 2024 (12pm-1pm EST)
Jawad, Saleh Abdel. (2016) "Colonial Anthropology: The Haganah Village Intelligence Archives." Jerusalem Quarterly 68 (Winter).
Week 6: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 (12pm-1pm EST)
Sabbagh-Khoury, Areej. (2022). "Settler colonialism and the archives of apprehension." Current Sociology 1-23.
Week 7: Tuesday, April 2, 2024 (12pm-1pm EST)
Azoulay, Ariella. 2015. "Photographic Conditions: Looting, Archives, and the Figure of the 'Infiltrator.'" Jerusalem Quarterly 61(Winter): 6–22.
Week 8: Tuesday, April 9, 2024 (12pm-1pm EST)
Archive Week on The Nakba Files blog posts from 2016: The Nakba Files on "Archives Week on The Nakba Files," Haneen Naamneh on "Establishing a Legal Counter-Archive in Palestine", Shira Robinson on "Of Scholars and Secrets," and Mezna Qato on "Returns of the Archive."
Week 9: Tuesday, April 16, 2024 (12pm-1pm EST)
Kuntz, Blair. (2021) "Stolen Memories, Israeli State Repression and Appropriation of Palestinian Cultural Resources." Journal of Radical Librarianship 7.
Week 10: Tuesday, April 23, 2024 (12pm-1pm EST)
Sela, Rona. 2018. "The Genealogy of Colonial Plunder and Erasure – Israel's Control over Palestinian Archives." Social Semiotics 28 (2): 201–29. https://doi.org/10.1080/10350330.2017.1291140.
Week 11:Tuesday, April 30, 2024 (12pm-1pm EST)
Yaqoubi, Mohanad. (n.d) "The Tokyo Reels ~ Prologue." archive stories.
Taha, Mai. (n.d.) "The People of the Archive: On the Oral History Tradition of Palestine." archive stories.
Week 12: Tuesday, May 7, 2024 (12pm-1pm EST)
Anziska, Seth. 2019. "Special Document File: The Erasure of the Nakba in Israel's Archives." Journal of Palestine Studies 49 (1): 64–76. https://doi.org/10.1525/jps.2019.49.1.64.
Week 13: Tuesday, May 14, 2024 (12pm-1pm EST)
Ghaddar, Jamila J. (2021) "Part II - 'that keening trajectory': Nakba genealogies, archival representation and the Dr. Constantine Zurayk collection." In Provenance in Place: Archives, Settler Colonialism & the Making of a Global Order. Doctoral Thesis, University of Toronto.
For your reference: Ghaddar, Jamila J., Sleiman, Hana; Chebaro, Kaoukab and Samar Mikati (2023) The Constantine Zurayk Collection Finding Aid (Beirut: Archives and Special Collections, Jafet Library, American University of Beirut). Revised by Shaden Dada.
Week 14: Tuesday, May 21, 2024 (12pm-1pm EST)
Beverly Butler, 2009. "'Othering' the archive - from exile to inclusion and heritage dignity: the case of Palestinian archival memory," Archival Science 9: 57–69.
Week 15: Tuesday, May 28, 2024 (12pm-1pm EST)
Mermelstein, H., Natarajan, V. ( 2014) "In the World Knowledge, Access, and Resistance: A Conversation on Librarians and Archivists to Palestine." In Informed Agitation: Library and Information Skills in Social Justice Movements and Beyond, edited by Melissa Morrone. Sacramento, CA: Library Juice Press.
Ayyash, M. (Jan 10, 2021) Racial Logics and the Epistemological Space of Palestine. Culturico.
International Council on Archives. (n.d.). Statement of the International Council on Archives on the Destruction of the Central Archives of the Municipality of Gaza. International Council on Archives. International Council on Archives. Retrieved January 3, 2024.
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Dr. James Lowry
Queens College, The City University of New York
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