Text Box: Literature and Society: Palestinian Literature and Culture Professor James Holstun MWF 10:00 - 10:50 Reg. No. 441241 Text Box: 383 Text Box: This course will focus on Palestinian literature and culture since the foundation of the State of Israel in 1948. The Palestinian people occupied and exiled as a result refer to this event as the Nakbah, or catastrophe. We will listen to some poetry in Arabic, but all of our readings will be in English or in English translation. Our main text will be Anthology of Modern Palestinian Literature (ed. Salma Khadra Jayyusi). We will also read A Land of Stone and Thyme: An Anthology of Palestinian Short Stories (ed. Nur and Abdel Wahab Elmessiri), The Adam of Two Edens: Selected Poems (Mahmud Darwish), After the Last Sky: Reflections on Exile (Edward Said, photographs by Jean Mohr), and In Search of Fatima (an autobiographical exploration by Ghada Karmi). We will compare two surreal comic classics: The Secret Life of Saeed, the Pessoptimist (Emile Habiby’s brilliant Palestinian revision of Voltaire’s Candide), and Divine Intervention (Elia Suleiman’s widely-praised 2002 film). We will see Mohammed Bakri’s documentary, Jenin, Jenin, recently banned in Israel, and several other films. And we will read some background materials in cultural and political history, literary criticism, and political essays. This is a course about fundamental human questions: exile, political oppression, home, sex, language, struggle, violence, death and life. I hope that we will have some passionate discussions. But everyone (this includes me) will listen as well as talk. And there will be no gold stars or black marks for any particular political positions, either at the beginning of the semester, or at the end. You will be writing daily, informal short essays on our class readings and viewings (ten minutes’ writing or so each), a mid-semester eight-page paper, and a revised and expanded fifteen-page paper at the end of the semester. Texts at Talking Leaves Bookstore and Queen City Imaging. Please contact me with any questions about the course: Clemens 319; (716) 645-2575 x1021; jamesholstun@hotmail.com. Text Box: NOTE: Change in days and time: Now meets on TTh 11:00 - 12:20.