Speaker Details
Dr
Blair Kuntz
Robarts Library, University of Toronto, Toronto Canada
Canada
Biography:
Blair Kuntz has been the Near and Middle Eastern Librarain at the University of Toronto in Toronto, Canada since 2003. After studying history at the University of Toronto and obtaining an Honour's Bachelor of Arts, he received a Master of Library Science degree from the University of Western Ontario in 1984. After working as a librarian for the Canadian federal government in the departments of the Environment and the Department of Canadian heritage, he left for the Middle East and lived in Lebanon, Palestine and Egypt from 1996-2001. During his stay in the region, he studied Arabic as a foreign-language at Balamand University in Lebanon and Birzeit University in Palestine. He has since then also studied Turkish and Persian at the University of Toronto. Since his appointment as Near and Middle Eastern Studies librarian, he has presented and published internationally a number of peer-reviewed papers in the fields of library science, foreign-langauge learning, peace and conflict studies,
Presentation Abstract:
Writing the Nakbah: Publishing Palestinian Writers of the Resistance, 1948-1982 After the expulsion of almost 700,000 Palestinan Arab residents from their homes in 1948 (leaving about 170,000 behind), it was left first to poets and literary writers to document the pain, despair, and humiliation of the Palestinian nakbah—or catastrophe. Those who occupied the land attempted to erase Palestinian memory, paving over their villages and homes. It was the poets and literary writers that first refuted claims such as those made by Israeli prime minister Golda Meir who would declare that “there is no such thing as a Palestinian people.” While Palestinian historians such as Nur al-Din Masalha needed time to pass before documenting the nakbah, and Israeli “new” historians such as Ilan Pape waited for Israeli archives to be opened before transcribing their findings, it was Palestinian poets and literary authors who first documented the tragic effects of the nakbah. Those poets left behind in the new state of Israel (which in the early years prohibited Arabic books in schoolrooms) found themselves subject to censorship and military law. Still, “poets of the resistance” Samih al-Qasim, Hussein Rashid, and Mahmoud Darwish, and novelists such as Emil Habibi, wrote and disseminated their works in publishing houses located in Akka, Nazareth and Haifa. Meanwhile, Palestinian refugee writers such as Ghassan Kanafani and Kamal Nasir (as well as poet Fadwa Tuqan whose home in the West Bank was occupied after the 1967 war) were published in Beirut, a locus of publishing throughout the Arab world. Most notable in this regard was the publishing house Dar-al-Awdah. This paper follows the careers of prominent Palestinian writers writing in Arabic from 1948 to 1982 (when the Palestinian Liberation Organization left Beirut) and follows the trail of the publishing houses which made available their books and literary journals.
Status: Confirmed