Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center invites you to attend a book launch “Romeo and Juliet in Palestine: Teaching Under Occupation”

Sunday July, 18th  at 6:00 pm (Palestine time) via Zoom,

The discussion will be in Arabic and with English commentary

The book was written by Tom Sperlinger, and translated to Arabic by Palestinian students under the supervision of Dr. Abdel Karim Daraghmeh.

To attend the event via Zoom, Please register through the link

Speakers: Dr. Ahmad Qabaha and the translation team (Hiba Hassoun, Saqer Dababsi, and Lama Yousef)

Romeo and Juliet in Palestine: Teaching Under Occupation

Is ‘Romeo and Juliet’ really a love story, or is it a play about young people living in dangerous circumstances? How might life under occupation produce a new reading of ‘Julius Caesar’? What choices must a group of Palestinian students make, when putting on a play which has Jewish protagonists? And why might a young Palestinian student refuse to read? For five months at the beginning 2013, Tom Sperlinger taught English literature at the Abu Dis campus of Al-Quds University in the Occupied West Bank. In his account of the semester, Sperlinger explores his students’ encounters with works from ‘Hamlet’ and ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ to Kafka and Malcolm X. By placing stories from the classroom alongside anecdotes about life in the West Bank, Sperlinger shows how his own ideas about literature and teaching changed during his time in Palestine, and asks what such encounters might reveal about the nature of pedagogy and the role of a university under occupation.

Ahmad Qabaha is an assistant professor in Postcolonial, Comparative and American Studies at An-Najah National University in Palestine and their director in Minor in American Studies Program. 

Hiba Nazier Hassoun: BA degree in English language and Literature- American Studies from An-Najah National University, and she works as a translator

Saqer Abdeljabar Dababsi: BA degree in English Language and Literature from An-Najah National University, and he is an English Language teacher

Lama Thabet Yousef: BA degree in English Language and literature from An-Najah National University, and she is an English Language teacher

*You can buy the book from Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center, price 30 shekels