Country of Words: A Transnational Atlas for Palestinian Literature is a digital-born project that retraces and remaps the global story of Palestinian literature in the 20th century, starting from the Arab world and going through Europe, North America, and Latin America. Sitting at the intersection of literary history, periodical studies, and digital humanities, Country of Words creates a digitally networked and multilocational literary history—a literary atlas enhanced. The virtual realm acts as the meeting place for the data and narrative fragments of this literature-in-motion, bringing together porous, interrupted, disconnected, and discontinuous fragments into an elastic, interconnected, and entangled literary history.

SPEAKER
Refqa Abu-Remaileh is Associate Professor of Modern Arabic Literature and Film at the Freie Universität Berlin, Germany. As Principal Investigator, she led the European Research Council project PalREAD (2018–2023). She is author of Country of Words: A Transnational Atlas for Palestinian Literature (Stanford University Press, 2023) and creator of the Arabic-language podcast Balad min Kalam: Conversations on Palestinian Literature available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Organized by the Arabic Seminar and co-sponsored by the Center for Palestine Studies and the Middle East Institute.

Join the Amman Global Center and the Center for Palestine Studies for an evening with Brian Boyd as he examines the near-total absence of prehistoric research in contemporary archaeology of Palestine.

This event will take place in-person at the Columbia Global Center in Amman.
5 Muhammad As-Saeed Al-Batayni Street Amman, Amman Governorate Jordan

This talk explores how “prehistory” was introduced during the British Mandate, embedding frameworks that continue to shape archaeological narratives, public perceptions, and higher education today. Archaeologists (primarily British and French) during the Mandate classified prehistoric material remains by cultural and ethnic groups, an approach fundamental to early Western archaeology but still pervasive in 21st-century studies of the area. The imposed framework of “Palaeolithic-Mesolithic-Neolithic,” developed for Europe’s past, remains dominant, shaping interpretations of social and ethnic development. While much has been written on archaeology’s influence on historical narratives, the lasting impact of European prehistory, introduced in the 1920s, remains under-examined. Revisiting these frameworks reveals archaeology’s role in shaping our understanding of history and consider its obligations in the present.  

Brian Boyd is Co-Director of the Center for Palestine Studies, Senior Lecturer in Anthropology, Director of Museum Anthropology and Co-Chair of the Seminar on Human-Animal Studies at Columbia University, New York City. He works on the later prehistory and politics of archaeology in southwest Asia, with a focus on Palestine. His current fieldwork takes place in the West Bank, where he co-directs (with Dr. Hamed Salem, Birzeit University) a community archaeology/museum project in the landscapes of the village of Shuqba, northwest of Ramallah. Brian co-chaired the Anthropology Division of the New York Academy of Sciences (2013-2017), and he currently serves on the board of the Palestinian American Research Center (PARC), and the Theoretical Archaeology Group Committee in both the UK and North America.

VENUE
East Gallery, Maison Française, Buell Hall

Bye Bye Tiberias Screening followed by a Q&A with Director Lina Soualem and Thomas Dodman
Lina Soualem, 2023, 82 min. In French and Palestinian Arabic with English Subtitles
Watch the Trailer

In her early twenties, Hiam Abbass left her native Palestinian village to pursue her dream of becoming an actress in Europe, leaving behind her mother, grandmother, and seven sisters. Thirty years later, her filmmaker daughter Lina returns with her to the village, questioning for the first time her mother’s bold choices, her self-imposed exile, and the profound influence the women in their family have had on both their lives.

Set between past and present, Bye Bye Tiberias weaves together contemporary imagery, family footage from the 1990s, and historical archives to portray four generations of courageous Palestinian women. Through their enduring bonds, they preserve their stories and legacy, despite exile, dispossession, and heartbreak.

This urgent personal documentary of longing, displacement and connection illuminates Palestinian family archives at a time when these documents and stories are being erased in the ongoing genocide. Cinematically weaving generations of matrilineal history with that of her motherland, we honour filmmaker Lina Soualem for her courage and artistry.

Jury Statement, Feature Documentary Award at DOXA Documentary Film Festival 2024

French-Palestinian-Algerian filmmaker and actress Lina Soualem was born and is based in Paris. After studying History and Political Science at La Sorbonne University, she worked as a programmer for the International Human Rights Film Festival in Buenos Aires. Soualem’s debut feature documentary, Their Algeria, premiered at the 2020 Visions du Réel International Film Festival and went on to win several prestigious awards, including the First Film Award at CINEMED Montpellier International Festival of Mediterranean Film, the Best Arab Documentary Award at El Gouna Film Festival, and the Best Documentary Award at CINEMANIA Film Festival 2021, among many others. Bye Bye Tiberias premiered at Venice Days in 2023.

In addition to her work behind the camera, Lina Soualem has acted in three feature films directed by Hafsia Herzi, Hiam Abbass, and Rayhana. She is currently developing projects as a writer in fiction, documentaries, and TV series.

Thomas Dodman is Associate Professor of French and Director of the History & Literature Program at Columbia University.

This event is organized by Maison Française and co-sponsored by the Center for Palestine Studies. It is presented in the series "In the Middle: Women Documenting Arab Struggles", produced by Columbia Maison Française. For information about other events in the series, please visit the Maison Française website.

PLEASE NOTE The Columbia campus is currently open only to Columbia-affiliated guests (with a CUID). Outside guests who register to attend a public event will be allowed to enter campus for the event if we provide their names and emails to Public Safety the day before. Please be sure to register for any events at least 48 hours ahead of time and you will get an email from caladminnoreply@columbia.edu with a unique QR code giving you access to the campus. Don't forget to bring your ID with you.