Shooting Back: Cinema and Palestine

Basic Info

• When: 7:00 Thursday nights
• Where: King 243
• Instructors: Maia Brown, Micol (Mimi) Issa, Robin Beck
• E-mail: Contact any of us at [first name].[last name]@oberlin.edu

Description

Shooting Back: Cinema and Palestine investigates the power of a series of films covering the Palestine-Israel conflict both as teachers of a "contested" historical subject but also as an aesthetic mode of resistance deserving of analysis in its own right. Throughout the course we watch films made by Palestinians, Israelis, and internationals about the conflict and reflect on the context in which they were made as well as their production and impact.

Assignments

• Short weekly readings
• A brief oral report on a current event and its relevance to class themes
• A final group project

For the final project, students will choose an issue or theme raised in one of the films, do research, and report about it to the class. Students are asked to look at at least two sources. Alternatively, students may watch a pertinent film that was not screened during the course and report about it to the class. See the instructors for approval and help finding the film.

Schedule:

Week	Film	Reading
1	Occupation 101	MERIP Primer Ilan Pappe: The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Preface Ilan Pappe: A History of Modern Palestine, Between Nakbah and Independence
2	Route 181	Jared Rapfogel: A Report of Dreams of a Nation Xan Brooks: "We have no film industry because we have no country"
3	Gaza Strip	Sara Roy: Failing Peace, chapter 7
4	Private	Benny Morris: Righteous Victims, pp. 14-36
5	Breaking the Silence: checkpoint footage and Hebron news report
6	Rana's Wedding	Elia Suleiman: A Cinema of Nowhere
7	The Battle of Algiers	Eqbal Ahmad: The Making of the Battle of Algiers
8	Class is cancelled!
9	Paradise Now	Frances Hasso: Discursive & Political Deployments by/of the 2002 Palestinian Women Suicide Bombers/Martyrs
10	Jenin, Jenin	Kamal Abdel-Malek: The Rhetoric of Violence: Arab-Jewish Encounters in Contemporary Palestinian Literature and Film, Conclusion Wikipedia page on Jenin, Jenin HRW report on Jenin Massacre (About and Summary sections only)
11	Arna's Children	Research on joint Arab-Jewish organizations
12	Encounter Point	Sandra Silberstein: Languaging Occupation: Dominant and Counter-Discourses

More Resources

Websites:

• Palestine Film Foundation
• Dreams of a Nation
• Film Reviews on Electronic Intifada

Books on Reserve at the library:

• Ilan Pappe A History of Modern Palestine
• Ilan Pappe The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine
• Sara Roy Failing Peace