Welcoming Research Fellow Dr. Hanine Shehadeh.
The Palestine Land Studies Center (PLSC) is welcoming its newest researcher, Dr. Hanine Shehadeh.
As a fellow at the PLSC, Dr. Shehadeh will further her research on the fusion between religious claims and nationalism and its political manifestations. She will also contribute to an on-going project with the Center for Advanced Mathematical Sciences at AUB on the dynamics of settler colonialism. In addition, Dr. Shehadeh will take part of the PLSC Lecture Series and engage with students at both graduate and undergraduate levels through mentoring and guest lecturing
Dr. Shehadeh completed her Ph.D. in Intellectual History at the Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies (MESAAS) at Columbia University in New York City. Her dissertation, which provided a history of the constructed social, political, religious, and cultural phenomenon of the dishonorable Jew in European Christian antisemitic Zionism, and later Jewish Zionism, was nominated for Columbia University’s Salo and Jeanette Baron Prize in Jewish Studies. Her work on affect formation in settler-colonial societies was granted Columbia University’s Humanities War and Peace Initiative award (HWPI). Her new research tentatively focuses on the social intersections of settler-colonialism and climate change, more specifically on deconstructing the global framing of climate change and environmental justice in relation to settler-colonialism in Palestine.
Announcements: Dr. Rami Zurayk appointed as Interim Director of the Palestine Land Studies Center
Dr. Rami Zurayk will assume the responsibilities of Dr. Howayda Al-Harithy as Interim Director of The Palestine Land Studies Center (PLSC) at AUB effective as of September 1, 2022.
Dr. Howayda Al-Harithy, Professor and Chair, Department of Architecture and Design, and Research Director at the Beirut Urban Lab, Maroun Semaan Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, assumed responsibilities as founding director of the PLSC in September 2019. Dr. Al-Harithy is a widely published scholar who has served on numerous committees and championed many projects at AUB. Her current research conceptualizes urban recovery in relation to processes of historical editing, urban trauma, and protracted displacement. During the foundational three years of the PLSC, Dr. Al-Harithy led the development of a strategic plan, the formation of steering and advisory committees, and initiated a graduate assistantship for the center. Under her leadership, the identity of the center was designed, space in West Hall was acquired and renovated, the website was launched, and a substantial portion of the Salman Abu Sitta archive was received and housed within PLSC and the Jafet Library archives. In addition, a lecture series was initiated and scholars hosted, COVID-19 notwithstanding. Dr. Al-Harithy also spearheaded institutional collaborations with Palestinian, regional and international institutions. On January 25, 2021, the PLSC was formally inaugurated with a ceremony and a digitized display of maps and archival evidence that form part of this valuable collection.
Dr. Rami Zurayk is Professor in (and former chairperson of) the Department of Landscape Design and Ecosystem Management at the Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences. He currently serves as Director of the Food Security Program as well as Coordinator of the Ecosystem Management Track in the Interfaculty Graduate Environmental Sciences Program. Dr. Zurayk’s research interests center on landscape and agrarian transformation, as well as on political ecology of the Arab world. He has published on food security in Gaza, on ‘Farming Palestine for Freedom” as well as extensively on issues pertaining to land use, food security and sovereignty, sustainable agriculture, and water and food systems during conflict. For two years, he was the lead researcher on a UN-HABITAT program on Land and Conflict in the Arab Region. He is a founding member of the Arab Food Sovereignty Network, which focuses on issues of food sovereignty in the Arab World, and is a contributor to Al Shabaka, the Palestine Policy Network. A long-term activist on Palestinian issues and former advisor of the AUB Palestinian Cultural Club, he has been serving as the co-chair of the PLSC Steering Committee and highly engaged in the center’s activities since its inception.