The Return of Zionism: Myth, Politics and Scholarship in Israel
Lecture by Gabriel Piterberg (UCLA)
Moderated by Marc Baer (ZMO)
Time: 15 April 2010, 6pm
Venue: Zentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung
Schützenstr. 18
10117 Berlin
Room 308
In this original and wide-ranging study, Gabriel Piterberg examines the ideology and literature behind the colonization of Palestine, from the late nineteenth century to the present.
Exploring Zionism's origins in Central-Eastern European nationalism and settler movements, he shows how its texts can be placed within a wider discourse of western colonization. Piterberg revisits the work of Theodor Herzl,Gershom Scholem, Anita Shapira and David Ben-Gurion, among other thinkers influential in the formation of the Zionist myth, to break open prevailing views of Zionism. He demonstrates that it was in fact unexceptional, expressing a consciousness and imagination typical of colonial settler movement. Shaped by European ideological currents and the realities of colonial life, Zionism constructed its own story as a unique and impregnable one, in the process excluding the voices of an indigenous people - the Palestinian Arabs.
"This thoroughly researched and engaging book provides an intellectual, cultural and literary fulcrum from which Zionist ideology and practice can be read afresh. ... This book is essential reading for everyone who is interested in the history of Zionism as well as the history of nationalist movements." - Yehouda Shenhav, Professor of Sociology,
Tel-Aviv University
Gabriel Piterberg teaches history at UCLA, and has taught at St Antony's and Balliol Colleges, Oxford. His previous books include An Ottoman Tragedy: History and Historiography at Play. He writes for the New Left Review and
the London Review of Books.
http://www.zmo.de/veranstaltungen/2010/Invitation_Piterberg.pdf
http://www.zmo.de
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