Book talk: "Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire"

The CMES Middle East Forum, Harvard University, and the Religion, Conflict, and Peace Initiative, Religion and Public Life, Harvard Divinity School present a tour of the newly released book

Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire 

with contributors

Asmaa AbuMezied: author of "Lost Identity: The Tale of Peasantry and Nature," and,

Yousef Aljamal: author of "Travel Restrictions as a Manifestation of Nakba: Gaza, the Path Backward is the Path Forward"

Jehad Abusalim, co-editor and author of the introduction to Light in Gaza, will provide concluding remarks

Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire (Haymarket Books, 2022): Imagining the future of Gaza beyond the cruelties of daily life, Light in Gaza is a powerful contribution to understanding the Palestinian experience. Gaza, home to two million people, continues to face suffocating conditions imposed by the Israeli occupation. This distinctive anthology imagines what the future of Gaza could be, while reaffirming the critical role of Gaza in Palestinian identity, history, and struggle for liberation. Light in Gaza is a seminal, moving and wide-ranging anthology of Palestinian writers and artists. It constitutes a collective effort to organize and center Palestinian voices in the ongoing struggle. As political discourse shifts toward futurism as a means of reimagining a better way of living, beyond the violence and limitations of colonialism, Light in Gaza is an urgent and powerful intervention into an important political moment.

Asmaa AbuMezied is an economic development and gender expert, working to address issues of gender, development, and climate change.  Her main area of focus is women's economic justice through gendered economic policies, women's rights in economic sectors, unpaid care and domestic work campaigning, inclusive markets, and feminist economics in fragile and conflict areas. Ms. AbuMezied is a beginner gardener in the Gaza Strip and is interested in the intersection of Palestinian political, agricultural, and environmental identities. She is a policy member and a current fellow at Al Shabaka, a Palestinian Think Tank.  She was an Atlas Corps Fellow with the Emerging Global Leaders Initiative, which partnered with the U.S. Department of State to advance President Obama’s “Stand with Civil Society agenda”; a Gaza Hub-Global Shaper Alumna, an initiative of the World Economic Forum; and was chosen to be part of a small design and production team at the 2021 "Tech for Social Activism" event sponsored by the Mozilla Foundation. 
 
Yousef M. Aljamal is a Palestinian refugee from Al-Nusierat refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. He holds an MA degree from the Department of International and Strategic Studies at the University of Malaya. He is currently a PhD Candidate at the Middle East Institute at Sakarya University in Turkey. In addition to his research interests in diaspora, security, and indigenous studies, Mr. Aljamal has been involved on a number of book projects including translations of  books on Palestinian prisoners, among them Dreaming of Freedom: Palestinian Child Prisoners Speak (2016), and a collection of stories about the shared struggle of Palestinian and Irish Hunger Strikers. Mr. Aljamal has published a number of journal articles on topics that include Palestinians in the diaspora, travel restrictions imposed on Palestinians, and struggles for liberation.

Lunch will be served.

Co-sponsors: CMES Middle East Forum and the Religion, Conflict, and Peace Initiative, Religion and Public Life, Harvard Divinity School
Contact: Liz Flanagan