21-01-2016 00:23
Event to mark the publication of Gaza As Metaphor (Edited by Helga Tawil-Souri and Dina Matar, Hurst, 2016) Open-air prison, Terror, Resistance, Occupation, Siege, Trauma, Bare humanity: irrespective of when, where, and to whom the word is uttered, Gaza immediately evokes an abundance of metaphors.
Similarly, a plethora of metaphors also invoke Gaza: Crisis, Exception, Refugees, Destitution, Tunnels, Persistence. This volume uses metaphor to record and historicise Gaza, to contextualise its everyday realities, interrogate its representations and provide an understanding on Gaza’s real and symbolic significance.
The essays within, written both from within Gaza and outside, touch on life and survival, the making of the Gaza Strip and it's increasing isolation, the discursive and visual tools that have often shackled Gaza behind misunderstandings, and what Gaza contributes to our understanding of exception; inequality; dispossession; bio-politics; necro-power and other terms which we rely on to make sense of our world.
The volume reveals how Gaza is an outcome of specific historical and spatial practices, and not simply a metaphor of a far-away humanitarian disaster or place of incomprehensible violence.
Gaza As Metaphor demonstrates that Gaza is a real place, an inseparable part of the past, present, and future condition of Palestinians, in particular, and of dispossession, more generally.
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EVENT DETAILS:
Chair: Gilbert Achcar, SOAS
Organiser: Centre for Media Studies and Centre for Palestine Studies
Contact email: vp6@soas.ac.uk
Contact Tel: 020 7898 4330/4490
Helga Tawil-Souri (NYU), Dina Matar (SOAS), Nimer Sultany (SOAS), Khaled Hroub (Northwestern), Atef AlShaer (Westminster) and Jehad Abu Salim (NYU)
Date: 18 February 2016Time: 8:00 PM
Finishes: 18 February 2016Time: 10:00 PM
Venue: Russell Square: College BuildingsRoom: Khalili Lecture Theatre - London - UK
Type of Event: Book Launch