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Palestine and Diaspora: Reflections on Contemporary Anglophone Palestinian Literature

Published on April 13, 2026 – Updated on April 13, 2026

The one-day international conference will focus on the current landscape of Palestinian literature in English. We aim to bring together academics and literary authors from Palestine and the diaspora to discuss the recent history of Palestinian literature and its evolution in parallel with the experience of war, displacement, and colonial violence.

Dates

on the April 17, 2026

9h30-16h
Location

Amphithéâtre Molinié,
Maison de la Recherche de Sorbonne Université,
28 rue Serpente, Paris 6e

This conference will also interrogate academia’s own production of knowledge about Palestinian literature, and explore the role of diasporic Palestinian literature with post/decolonial studies and diaspora studies. Contemporary authors will discuss their use of various genres, including poetry, fiction, autobiographical non-fiction, experimental texts, but also the concrete conditions of literary production both at home and within the diaspora.
The conference aims at recognizing and giving visibility to a rich and important corpus of Anglophone literature today, which is particularly relevant to the post/decolonial research led by the Transculturalismes team at VALE.
The conference will be co-organized by the Palestine seminar team at CREA/Nanterre. 

 

PROGRAMME

9h30-10h: Accueil

10h-11h15: Entre les langues : la littérature palestinienne en anglais et en traduction. Modération: Sbeih Sbeih (Lyon 2, IREMAM)

  • Hadeel Karkar (Scuola Normale Superiore), La littérature palestinienne marxiste entre le discours révolutionnaire et la politique libérale

  • Chakib Ararou (IREMAM), L’Année des petits musées d'Asmaa Azaizeh: le memoir face au deuil et à l'effacement

11h15-12h30: Le roman palestinien anglophone contemporain au prisme des études post/décoloniales. Modération: Martina Balassone (VALE, Sorbonne Université)

  • Neela Cathelain (VALE), Palestinian Women Writers and Diasporic Resistance
  • Jaine Chemmachery (VALE), ‘This time out of joint thing’: Temporal poetics of resistance/persistence in Isabella Hammad’s Enter Ghost (2023)

12h30-14h: Repas (buffet)

  • 14h-15h: Olivia Elias, poète. Entretien avec Chakib Ararou (IREMAM)

  • 15h-16h: Yasmin Zaher, autrice. Entretien avec Neela Cathelain (VALE)

Updated on 13 avril 2026