The Holocaust and the Nakba: A New Grammar of Trauma and History

Following the publication of his recent co-edited book The Holocaust and the Nakba: A New Grammar of Trauma and History (Columbia University Press), Bashir’s talk will examine how and why the Holocaust and the Nakba are interlinked without blurring fundamental differences between them. While these two foundational tragedies are often discussed separately and in abstraction from the constitutive historical global contexts of nationalism and colonialism, Bashir’s talk will explore the historical, political, and cultural intersections between them. He will argue that these intersections are embedded in cultural imaginations, colonial and asymmetrical power relations, realities, and structures. Critically investigating these intersections, he will claim, paves the way for a new political, historical, and moral grammar that enables decolonization and egalitarian bi-nationalism in Israel/Palestine.