Description
Book SynopsisChallenging the widespread 'separatist imagination' behind partition, this book demonstrates the ways in which works of Jewish and Arab literature reject simple notions of separatism and instead display configurations of identity that emphasize the presence of alterity within the self - the Jew within the Arab, and the Arab within the Jew.
Trade Review"This is a necessary and timely book written in luminous prose... In Spite of Partition offers readers contagiously exciting and productive readings that will surely stimulate future discussions, not only of the literary works themselves, but for thinking more creatively about ethnicity, identity, and shared histories and forms of belonging in this woefully unpromising first decade of the twenty-first century."--Ranen Omer-Sherman, Shofar "This new addition is a thoughtful, well-researched, and carefully constructed argument about the nature of the relationship between Arab and Jew, in its many apparitions and configurations. As such, it is an important addition to the progressive discourse around the future, as well as the past, of Palestine."--Gil Anidjar, Journal of Palestine Studies
Table of ContentsPREFACE ix ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xi INTRODUCTION: Between "Jew" and "Arab": Probing the Borders of the Orient 1 CHAPTER ONE: History, Memory, Identity: From the Arab Jew "We Were" to the Arab Jew "We May Become" 20 CHAPTER TWO: The Legacy of Levantinism: Against National Normality 44 CHAPTER THREE: Bringing Hebrew Back to Its (Semitic) Place: On the Deterritorialization of Language 73 CHAPTER FOUR: Too Jewish and Too Arab or Who Is the (Israeli) Subject? 94 CHAPTER FIVE: Memory, Forgetting, Love: The Limits of National Memory 116 AFTERWORD: Going Beyond the Borders of Our Times 139 NOTES 143 BIBLIOGRAPHY 167 INDEX 185
