Palestinian Territories

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Amid Violence in the Middle East, Palestinian American Poet Shares Work at Harvard Center for Middle Eastern Studies

October 25, 2023

Lisa Suhair Majaj — an author and scholar of Arab American Literature — shared a collection of her poems at a Tuesday event at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies. Majaj, who was born in America and grew up in Jordan, shared 17 of her poems chronicling her life as a Palestinian American. Speaking to an audience of more than 30 people, she acknowledged the difficulty of the subject matter amidst the violence unfolding in Israel and Palestine....

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MESA Board Statement on Palestine and Israel

October 17, 2023

The Executive Committee of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies endorses the October 16, 2023, statement by the Board of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) condemning the killing of all civilians in Palestine and Israel. The statement asserts that there is no military solution to the conflict and supports "a political solution that offers safety, dignity, and equal rights for Palestinians and Israelis." It also called on universities to "affirmatively assert and protect the right to academic freedom and freedom of speech on their campuses" amidst heightened incidents of violence...

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Herbert Kelman

Professor Herbert C. Kelman, A Life

September 30, 2022

On September 16, at the Memorial Church of Harvard University, a memorial service was held for Herbert C. Kelman, whose 54 year career at Harvard, most recently as the Richard Clarke Cabot Research Professor of Social Ethics, came to a close when Kelman passed away peacefully on March 1 at age 94. One of the speakers at the memorial was CMES alumnus Philip S. Khoury (History and Middle East Studies PhD '80), Ford International Professor of History and Associate Provost at MIT, who delivered the following tribute to his long-time friend.

I knew Herb Kelman for more...

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Samir Mansour Bookshop in Gaza, before and after Israeli attack, May 18, 2021

Readings and Digital Resources on Palestine

May 21, 2021

Rosie Bsheer, Assistant Professor of History, and Cemal Kafadar, Vehbi Koç Professor of Turkish Studies, both core faculty members of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, recommend the following English-language materials and resources to contextualize current events in Palestine. These resources offer analyses and histories of expulsion, occupation, settler colonialism, forced evictions, home demolitions, and annexation that situate the current struggle as...

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Medhini Kumar near Lake Tiberias

Q&A With Medhini Kumar

February 4, 2021

Medhini Kumar is a 2016 graduate of the CMES AM Program in Middle Eastern Studies. She currently works as Communications Manager for UNRWA USA, an American nonprofit that is committed to bettering the lives of Palestine refugees through advocacy efforts in the United States and fundraising for United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) programs in the Middle East.... Read more about Q&A With Medhini Kumar