Palestinian and Arab-Jewish Cultures

Reuven Snir is Professor of Arabic Language and Literature at the University of Haifa. His most recent books in English include Arab-Jewish Literature: The Birth and Demise of the Arabic Short Story (Brill, 2019), Modern Arabic Literature: A Theoretical Framework (EUP, 2017), Baghdad ― The City in Verse (Harvard University Press, 2013) and Who Needs Arab-Jewish Identity? (Brill, 2015).

• PrefaceAcknowledgmentsTechnical NotesNotes on TransliterationIntroductionPART I: OCCUPATION, DOMINATION, AND COMMITMENT1. Performance: In the Service of the NationIntroductionFirst AttemptsUprooting ProfessionalizationConclusion2. Commitment: Verse Drama and ResistanceIntroductionPolitical Theater“Ladder of Hunger”ApocalypticismConclusion3. Chronicle: The Ongoing NakbaIntroduction“I Am the Last Arabs’ Sigh”“Oh, Father, I Am Joseph”“Will Homer be Born after Us?”Conclusion4. Bilingualism: Palestinians in HebrewIntroductionReterritorialization“I Melt out of Love”“Hebrew, Arabic, and Death”ConclusionPART II: HYBRIDIZATION, EXCLUSION, AND DEMISE5. Pluralism: Arabs of Mosaic FaithIntroductionHistorical Background“A Carbon Copy of Ibn al-Balad”“We Are Arabs before We Are Jews”Conclusion6. Spring: “We Were Like Those Who Dream”Introduction“In the World of Light”“Till Spring Comes”The Shift to Hebrew Conclusion7. Demise: The Last of the Mohicans IntroductionExistentialist SensibilityMystical and Metaphysical Motifs“Iraq’s Days”Conclusion8. Identity: Inessential SolidaritiesIntroductionNarrativization of the SelfInterpellation and ExclusionGlobalizationConclusionEpilogue: “Trailed Travellers”: Between Fiction, Meta>Fiction, and HistoryReferencesIndex

Apart from the author’s possessing an undisputable in-depth knowledge of the subjects discussed, the most interesting thing with this work is the new perspectives that are being presented. This is achieved by the writer’s method of putting the subjects against the backdrop of different angles. The method of looking at the subjects against the different axes has its own original place and it gives its own contribution to a deeper understanding of Arabic literature.