Book Talk with Nawal Musleh-Motut, “Connecting the Holocaust and the Nakba Through Photograph-based Storytelling: Willing the Impossible”

Book Talk with Nawal Musleh-Motut: 

Connecting the Holocaust and the Nakba Through Photograph-based Storytelling: Willing the Impossible

FEBRUARY 6, 2024

5:30 PM RECEPTION | 6 PM DOORS OPEN

WCC 05 ICBC CONCOURSE LOBBY FOR RECEPTION | WCC 20 ICBC SALON B FOR EVENT

Join CCMS on Feb. 6 in an event that focuses on the launch of Nawal Musleh-Motut’s new book, Connecting the Holocaust and the Nakba Through Photograph-based Storytelling: Willing the Impossible.

ABOUT THE BOOK

This unprecedented ethnographic study introduces a unique photography-based storytelling method that brings together everyday Palestinians and Israelis to begin connecting rather than comparing their distinct yet organically connected histories of suffering and exile resulting from the Holocaust and the Nakba. Working with Palestinians and Israelis living in their respective Canadian diasporas who are of the Holocaust and Nakba postmemory generations-those who did not experience these traumas but are nonetheless haunted by them-this study demonstrates that storytelling and photography enable the occasions and conditions of possibility necessary for willing the impossible. That is, by narrating and then exchanging their (post)memories of the Holocaust and/or the Nakba through associated vernacular photographs, project participants were able to connect rather than compare their histories of suffering and exile; take moral, ethical, and political responsibility for one another; and imagine new forms of cohabitation grounded in justice and equitable rights for all.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Nawal Musleh-Motut (she, her) is the Postdoctoral Fellow in Social Justice and Decolonization at the ISTLD and an uninvited settler of Palestinian descent.

Her postdoctoral research project, Creating Decolonial and Just Futurities in Postsecondary Education, highlights the dangers and counters the consequences of institutional performances of equity, diversity, and inclusion that support the neocolonial and neoliberal status quo by creating decolonial and just educational futurities via teaching and learning.

Nawal’s current ISTLD projects include the Decolonial Teaching and Learning Seminar Series and the Decolonizing and Indigenizing STEM (Sciences, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) at SFU project.

Nawal has extensive experience both as a researcher and post-secondary educator. She previously worked as Research Officer, Generalist with BC’s Office of the Human Rights Commissioner, General Education Project Manager at SFU, Limited Term Lecturer in the School of Communication at SFU, Sessional Instructor in Mass Communication at both Columbia College and the University of the Fraser Valley, and Research Specialist with Indian Residential School Resolution Canada. She will return as a Limited Term Lecturer in the School of Communication at SFU in Fall 2022 and her book, Connecting the Holocaust and the Nakba Through Photograph-base Storytelling: Willing the Impossible, will be published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2023.

Her primary research, writing, and teaching interests include: decolonial theory and praxis; critical intersectional social justice; critical race/anti-racism theory and praxis; critical, imaginative, and performative ethnography; visual culture; narrative and storytelling; solidarity and the creation of decolonial futurities between Indigenous, Palestinian, and Black communities globally.