Ambivalent Indigeneity: Genealogies of the Split Arab/Jew Figure
THIS EVENT IS FREE AND OPEN TO ALL STANFORD FACULTY, GRADUATE STUDENTS, AND CCSRE AFFILIATES. LUNCH WILL BE SERVED. TO RSVP: CLICK HERE.
This lecture will offer a genealogical reading of the gradual splitting of the once-linked Semitic figure into "Arab" and "Jew" and its ramifications for contemporary discourses about Jews and Muslims. Examining the shifting Orientalist imaginary in the wake of the Enlightenment and colonialism, the lecture traces contemporary assumptions about a longstanding Arab / Jewish divide -- and the ambiguous position of the Arab-Jew within it -- back to crucial shifts in 19th century representation, thus providing an historical lens which can help illuminate contemporary postcolonial tensions.
Ella Shohat is a Professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies and Art and Public Policy at Tisch School of the Arts, New York University. Her books include: Taboo Memories, Diasporic Voices (Duke University Press 2006); Israeli Cinema: East/West and the Politics of Representation (University of Texas Press 1989; Updated Edition with a new postscript chapter, I.B. Tauris 2010); Talking Visions: Multicultural Feminism in a Transnational Age (MIT & The New Museum of Contemporary Art 1998); Dangerous Liaisons: Gender, Nation and Postcolonial Perspectives (co-edited, University of Minnesota Press 1997); Between the Middle East and the Americas: The Cultural Politics of Diaspora (co-edited, The University of Michigan Press 2013, Honorable Mention in the Non-Fiction Category of the 2014 Arab American Book Award, The Arab American Museum); and with Robert Stam, Unthinking Eurocentrism (winner of the Katherine Kovacs Singer Best Book Award, Routledge 1994; Second 20th Anniversary Edition, with a new Afterward chapter, Routledge 2014); Multiculturalism, Postcoloniality and Transnational Media (Rutgers University Press 2003); Flagging Patriotism: Crises of Narcissism and Anti-Americanism (Routledge 2007); and Race in Translation: Culture Wars Around the Postcolonial Atlantic (NYU Press 2012).
The RICSRE Faculty Seminar Series creates a monthly forum for faculty, students, and scholars to explore topics related to race and ethnicity in an interdisciplinary and comparative framework. Participation in the series is an excellent way to hear and discuss the work of a multidisciplinary group of colleagues from Stanford and other institutions. The series is open to all Stanford faculty, graduate students, and CCSRE affiliates.