Today, US-Israeli friendship, partnership, and cooperation are commonly celebrated across the US political spectrum. In our troubled times, it is one of the last remaining issues with truly bipartisan support. But what about the other side of the coin? If US-Israeli cooperation is seen as natural, what about solidarity between the oppressed populations in each country? What about the idea of Black-Palestinian solidarity? In this talk, drawn from the presenter’s book, The Palestinian Idea, the history of Black-Palestinian relations is examined through the lens of media and culture. Focusing on a number of recent instances in which links between these two communities have been fashioned through an array of media forms including YouTube videos, Twitter feeds, Facebook posts, spoken word poetry, hip hop music, and television news spectacles, Greg argues that Black-Palestinian media activism presents an opportunity to critically examine and challenge our notions of race, identity, and solidarity itself.
Book Talk: The Palestinian Idea w/ Greg Burris
Greg Burris, Assistant Professor of Media Studies, American University of Beirut & Discussant Helga Tawil-Souri, NYU
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Greg Burris is a film and cultural theorist whose work focuses on race, media, and emancipatory politics. He is an Assistant Professor of Media Studies at the American University of Beirut, and his writings have appeared in such publications as CineAction, Cinema Journal, The Electronic Intifada, Film Quarterly, The Guardian, Jadaliyya, Middle Eastern Studies, Quarterly Review of Film and Video, and the anthologies Futures of Black Radicalism and Global Raciality: Empire, PostColoniality, and Decoloniality. The Palestinian Idea: Film, Media, and the Radical
Discussant:
Helga Tawil-Souri
Associate Professor, Department of Media, Culture, and Communication (Steinhardt); Department of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies (FAS)
Helga works on issues to do with technology, media, culture, territory and politics with a particular focus on the Middle East, and especially Palestine-Israel. She has researched and written on Arab media; Palestinian cinema, television, video games and popular culture; as well as on cultural/territorial politics in Palestine-Israel.
We have discounted copies of the book for sale at the Kevorkian Center. Stop by and purchase your own for $25 or email James Ryan, James.Ryan@nyu.edu
*Please note that seating is limited and first come, first served. So, plan to come a bit earlier to secure your own seat!