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Cultural Memory In Literature

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Introduction: The Israeli Palestinian conflict has continued for over fifty years now. The representation of this conflict had found various means ranging from literary productions, artistic exhibition, and different genres such as memoirs, novels, films, and testimonies. Palestinians narratives and cinema sought to represent Palestinian cultural memory and the trauma caused by the Israeli settler colonialism. Over the last years the term “cultural memory” emerged to describe the multifaceted ways in which societies remember their past using a variety of media. Our emphasis here is that through repeated acts of remembrance, collective memories are actively produced by means of a variety of genres; however it seems more practical to focus on …show more content…

We shall use two novels, namely, Susan Abulhawa’s Mornings in Jenin (2010) and Michelle Cohen Corasanti’s The Almond Tree (2012), and two films, Eran Riklis’ Lemon tree (2008) and Ari Folman’s Waltz with Bashir (2008). This research will combine different fields that make of it a dissertation in cultural studies; indeed, it shall involve the study of novels and films. Therefore, we opted to combine literary studies with cinematic studies to prove in vivo, if possible, that both literature and cinema are used as a way to narrate and represent Palestinian cultural memory and …show more content…

Neil Lazarus noted that the term postcolonial emerged in the 1970 and 80s as a means of making sense of the tragedies that had occurred in many newly independent states, he also noted that the term was not a plainly neutral description of these states’ historical status . 4. Motivation and Significance of the Study: Opting for the use of novels and films to tackle the issues related to the Israeli Palestinian conflict is essentially a new topic and a challenging one in many ways. Little attention has been given to the combination of literature and cinema in general and to the Israeli Palestinian conflict in English Departments in Algeria in particular, thus, this study shall be a considerable contribution to both the study of the Israeli Palestinian conflict and the combination of literature and cinema in Anglophone studies. Ultimately, we look forward that this humble study will prompt further research in these

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