Modern Palestinian History

Catalog description

This course examines the origins of one of the longest running and most significant settler colonial realities in modern history. It explores social dynamics in late-Ottoman Palestine; the birth of the Zionist movement; the establishment of British imperial rule; the Palestinian revolt of 1936-39; the 1948 Nakba; the creation of the state of Israel; the dispossession of the Palestinian refugees; and the 1967 occupation and its aftermath. Students will consider questions of social, demographic, and cultural transformation as well as political dynamics. Using a range of primary sources, they will reflect upon the period in question on its own terms and search for the voices of its protagonists. This subject has attracted lively debate and contributed to major theoretical approaches such as post-colonialism and comparative settler-colonial studies. The course will engage these approaches and major historiographical debates in the field.