Symposium in honour of the publication of the book by Dr. Fatma Kassem
Palestinian Women: Narrative Histories and Gendered Memory

Wednesday, 25.5.2011, 20:00

Kassem's book brings the personal stories of Palestinian women who experienced the Nakba and became citizens of the state of Israel. Through the stories their stories, the book examines the complex relationship between nationalism, nationality and gender, and the way in which memory is used as a site of remembrance and resistance.

Dr. Fatma Kassem finished her doctoral dissertation - on which the book is based  - in the Department of Behavioral Sciences at Ben Gurion University, and her post-doctoral studies at the Free University of Berlin. She teaches at the Colleges of Achva and Sakhnin.

Speakers:
Dr. Fatma Kassem, author of the book, will present the main findings from the life stories of her interviewees, and will speak of the position of the university to her treatment of the subject and to the political significance of that position.

Professor Lev Grinberg, founder and Head of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Ben Gurion University, who supervised Kassem's Ph.D., will speak of the importance of the research and its uniqueness: the importance of the female voice, the discussion of the body, the language and the home, and the lack of use of the term "Nakba" by the interviewees.

Safa Abu-Rabia, an anthropologist, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Middle Eastern Studies at Ben-Gurion University and a social activist. Writes about the historical and gender discourse among Bedouin women from the generation of '48 in the Negev. She will speak about the importance of the the memory of Nakba and  the place of the female voice.