Is there a link between the colonization of Palestinian lands and the enclosing of Palestinian minds? The Palestinian Idea argues that it is precisely through film and media that hope can occasionally emerge amidst hopelessness, emancipation amidst oppression, freedom amidst apartheid. Greg Burris employs the work of Edward W. Said, Jacques Rancière, and Cedric J. Robinson in order to locate Palestinian utopia in the heart of the Zionist present.

He analyzes the films of prominent directors Annemarie Jacir (Salt of This Sea, When I Saw You) and Hany Abu-Assad (Paradise Now) to investigate the emergence and formation of Palestinian identity. Looking at Mais Darwazah's documentary My Love Awaits Me By the Sea, Burris considers the counterhistories that make up the Palestinian experience-stories and memories that have otherwise been obscured or denied. He also examines Palestinian (in)visibility in the global media landscape, and how issues of Black-Palestinian transnational solidarity are illustrated through social media, staged news spectacles, and hip hop music.

Author: Greg Burris
Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Temple University Press
Published: 03/18/2019
Series: Insubordinate Spaces
Pages: 298
Weight: 1.15lbs
Size: 8.90h x 6.00w x 0.80d
ISBN: 9781439916742


Review Citation(s):
Choice 09/01/2019

About the Author
Greg Burris is an Assistant Professor of Media Studies in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Media Studies at the American University of Beirut in Lebanon. His writings on race, film, and cultural theory have appeared in such publications as CineAction, Cinema Journal, Electronic Intifada, Jadaliyya, Quarterly Review of Film and Video, and the anthologies Futures of Black Radicalism and Global Raciality: Empire, PostColoniality, and DeColoniality.