Imaging and Imagining Palestine is the first comprehensive study of photography during the British Mandate period (1918–1948). It addresses well-known archives, photos from private collections never available before and archives that have until recently remained closed. This interdisciplinary volume argues that photography is central to a different understanding of the social and political complexities of Palestine in this period. While Biblical and Orientalist images abound, the chapters in this book go further by questioning the impact of photography on the social histories of British Mandate Palestine. This book considers the specific archives, the work of individual photographers, methods for reading historical photography from the present and how we might begin the process of decolonising photography. "Imaging and Imagining Palestine presents a timely and much-needed critical evaluation of the role of photography in Palestine. Drawing together leading interdisciplinary specialists and engaging a range of innovative methodologies, the volume makes clear the ways in which photography reflects the shifting political, cultural and economic landscape of the British Mandate period, and experiences of modernity in Palestine. Actively problematising conventional understandings of production, circulation and the in/stability of the photographic document, Imaging and Imagining Palestine provides essential reading for decolonial studies of photography and visual culture studies of Palestine." - Chrisoula Lionis, author of Laughter in Occupied Palestine: Comedy and Identity in Art and Film "Imaging and Imagining Palestine is the first and much needed overview of photography during the British Mandate period. From well-known and accessible photographic archives to private family albums, it deals with the cultural and political relations of the period thinking about both the Western perceptions of Palestine as well as its modern social life. This book brings together an impressive array of material and analyses to form an interdisciplinary perspective that considers just how photography shapes our understanding of the past as well as the ways in which the past might be reclaimed." - Jack Persekian, Founding Director of Al Ma'mal Foundation for Contemporary Art in Jerusalem "Imaging and Imagining Palestine draws together a plethora of fresh approaches to the field of photography in Palestine. It considers Palestine as a central node in global photographic production and the ways in which photography shaped the modern imaging and imagining from within a fresh regional theoretical perspective." - Salwa Mikdadi, Director al Mawrid Arab Center for the Study of Art, New York University Abu Dhabi

Palestine has often been defined and constructed in the global imaginary through conflict, resistance, oppression and violence. Its representation is so overridden with conflicting claims and associations that it remains inaccessible, even to Palestinians. Producing Palestine addresses the creative labour of producing Palestine, particularly in technological and media spaces that are defined by their porousness and by their intermediality – crossing genres of popular culture and disciplinary boundaries. It offers sixteen 'cases' which collectively conceptualize, engage in, and invite readers to participate in the production of Palestine and its theorization. These cases cover a wide array of spaces of production such as poster art, TikTok, virtual technologies, digital mapping, drone footage, online cooking shows, documentaries, music videos and many more. Producing Palestine contends that representations of Palestine carry a multitude of meanings, that Palestine is continually produced and reproduced, dynamically generating new knowledge production across media, languages, temporalities, geographies and disciplines.

Comedy in Crises provides a novel contribution to an emerging comedy studies field, offering a fresh approach and understanding toward both the motivation and reception of humour in diverse contemporary art contexts. Drawing together research by artists, theorists, curators, and historians from around the world (from Palestine, to Greece, Brazil, and Indigenous Australia), it provides new insight into how humour is weaponised in contemporary art – focusing on its role in negotiating complex cultural identities, the expectations of art markets, the impact of historical legacies, as well as its role in bolstering cultural resilience. In so doing, this book explores a vital, yet under-explored, aspect of contemporary art. Over the last decade, we have witnessed an overwhelming emphasis on experiences of precarity and emergency in contemporary art discourse, reflecting a popular view that the decade following the outbreak of the global financial crisis has been marked by an intersection of constant crises (refugee crisis, sovereign debt crisis, environmental disaster, COVID). Comedy in Crises offers innovative analysis of the relationship between this context and the growing use of humour by artists from around the world, making clear the vital role of laughter in mediating the collective trauma that takes shape today in a period of protracted crisis.

Intro -- Acknowledgments -- Contents -- Notes on Contributors -- List of Figures -- List of Tables -- Introduction -- Genesis of a Project -- The Power of a Cultural Paradigm for British Mandate Palestine and Christian Communities -- Precedents -- Looking at Cultural Diplomacy in a Proto-National Setting: Towards an Integrative Approach -- Overview of the Book -- Speaking to the Silences? -- Bibliography -- Turning the Tables? Arab Appropriation and Production of Cultural Diplomacy -- Introduction Part I Indigenising Cultural Diplomacy? -- Bibliography -- Orthodox Clubs and Associations: Cultural, Educational and Religious Networks Between Palestine and Transjordan, 1925-1950 -- Orthodox Laity in the Emirate of Transjordan: Developing Diplomatic Ties in a Political Sphere in Reconfiguration -- Orthodox Laity During the Interwar Period: Regional Networks and Circulations -- Claims for Cultural and Educational Facilities in the New Capital -- Orthodox Laity and the Mandate Representative: Creating Political Ties -- The Orthodox Notables in Transjordan and the Development of the Arab Orthodox Nahda Association -- The Foundation of the Arab Orthodox Nahda Association: A Palestinian Connection? -- The Arab Orthodox Nahda Association: Creating a Communal Urban Presence -- Migration and Regional Circulation: Expanding the Arab Orthodox Imprint in Amman -- The 1940s and the Change of Diplomatic Paradigm -- From Sunday School to the Educational Association -- Sporting and Cultural Associations: Family Networks and Know-How -- Conclusion -- Bibliography -- The Making Stage of the Modern Palestinian Arabic Novel in the Experiences of the udabāʾ Khalīl Baydas (1874-1949) and Iskandar al-Khūri al-BeitJāli (1890-1973) -- A Cultural Life Before Its Destruction -- Literature, Nahda and Russian Schools in Palestine.

Introducing a novel anthropological study of photography in the Middle East, Emilie Le Febvre takes us to the Naqab Desert where Bedouin use photographs to make, and respond to, their own histories. She argues Bedouin presentations of the past are selective but increasingly reliant on archival documents such as photographs which spokespersons treat as evidence of their local histories amid escalating tensions in Israel. These practices shape Bedouin visual historicity, that is the diverse ways people produce their pasts in the present with images. This book charts these processes through the afterlives of six photographs (c. 1906–2013) as they circulate between the Naqab’s entangled visual economies – a transregional landscape organised by cultural ideals of proximity and assemblages of Bedouin iconography. Le Febvre illustrates how representational contentions associated with tribal, civic, and Palestinian-Israeli politics influence how images do history work in this society. She concludes Bedouin visual historicity is defined by acts of persuasion during which photographs authenticate alternating history projects. Here, Bedouin value photographs not because they evidence singular narratives of the past. Rather, the knowledges inscribed by photography are multifarious as they support diverse constructions of history and society with which members mediate a wide range of relationships in southern Israel. This book bridges studies of anthropology, photography, Palestinian-Israeli politics, and Bedouin Middle East history.

Ways of seeing the Palestinian visual archive -- The archival and narrative structure of the photographic albums of Wasif Jawhariyyeh / Issam Nassar -- Visual interlude stirring times : photographic images from ottoman and mandate Palestine -- Patronage and Photography : Hussein Hashim's melancholic journey / Salim Tamari -- Our photography : refusing the 1948 partition plan of the sensible / Stephen Sheehi -- The potentials and presence of Palestine.

All national identities are somewhat fluid, held together by collective beliefs and practices as much as official territory and borders. In the context of the Palestinians, whose national status in so many instances remains unresolved, the articulation and 'imagination' of national identity is particularly urgent. This book explores the ways that Palestinian intellectuals, artists, activists and ordinary citizens 'imagine' their homeland, examining the works of key Palestinian thinkers and writers such as Edward Said, Mahmoud Darwish, Mourid Barghouti, Ghassan Kanafani and Naji Al Ali. Deploying Benedict Anderson's notion of 'Imagined Communities' and Edward Soja's theory of 'Third Space', Tahrir Hamdi argues that the imaginative construction of Palestine is a key element in the Palestinians' ongoing struggle. An interdisciplinary work drawing upon critical theory, postcolonial studies and literary analysis, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of Palestine and Middle East studies and Arabic literature

'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. Contributors: Sarah Irving, Charbel Nassif, Konstantinos Papastathis, Karène Sanchez Summerer, Cyrus Schayegh

Over the last three decades, a new generation of conceptual artists has come to the fore in the Arab Middle East. As wars, peace treaties, sanctions, and large-scale economic developments have reshaped the region, this cohort of cultural producers has also found themselves at the center of intergenerational debates on the role of art in society. Central to these cultural debates is a steady stream of support from North American and European funding organizations—resources that only increased with the start of the Arab uprisings in the early 2010s. The Politics of Art offers an unprecedented look into the entanglement of art and international politics in Beirut, Ramallah, and Amman to understand the aesthetics of material production within liberal economies. Hanan Toukan outlines the political and social functions of transnationally connected and internationally funded arts organizations and initiatives, and reveals how the production of art within global frameworks can contribute to hegemonic structures even as it is critiquing them—or how it can be counterhegemonic even when it first appears not to be. In so doing, Toukan proposes not only a new way of reading contemporary art practices as they situate themselves globally, but also a new way of reading the domestic politics of the region from the vantage point of art.

The Armenian contribution to Ottoman photography in the last decades of the empire has been well-documented. Studios founded and run by Armenian Ottomans in Istanbul contributed to the exciting cultural flourishing of Ottoman 'modernity', before its dissolution after World War I. Less known however are the pioneering studios from the east in the empire's Armenian heartlands, whose photographic output reflected and became a major form of documenting the momentous events and changes of the period, from war and revolution to persecution, migration and ultimately, genocide. This book examines photographic activity in three Armenian cities on the Armenian plateau: Erzurum, Kharpert and Van. It explores how indigenous photography was rooted in the seismic social, political and cultural shifts that shaped Armenian lives during the Ottoman Empire's last four decades. Arguing that photographic practice was marked by the era's central movements, it shows how photography was bound-up in Armenian educational endeavours, mass migration and revolutionary activity. Photography responded to and became the instrument of these phenomena, so much so that it can be shown that they were responsible for the very spread of the medium through the Armenian communities of the Ottoman East and the rapid increase in photographic studios. Contributing to growing interest in Ottoman and Middle Eastern photographic history, the book also offers a valuable perspective on the history of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire.