The politics of the interior: resistance, whitewashing and propaganda in 'The Mandelbaum Gate' by Muriel Spark and 'The Lord' by Soraya Antonius

The critical commentary considers my creative writing in reference to the work of two writers I admire, Muriel Spark and Soraya Antonius, the former highly acclaimed, the latter forgotten. I analyse Spark’s The Mandelbaum Gate (1965) and Antonius’s The Lord (1986), commenting on how these novels position themselves against the political realities of Palestine/Israel during times when Palestine was grossly misrepresented in the West. How literary techniques are used in the production of propaganda materials is considered as well as how the novels portray interior spaces. The term ‘interior’ here referring both to heartlands of indigenous rebellion and also with regards to domestic interiors. Depictions of the land, its flora and fauna are set against the Zionist myths of Palestine that portrayed Palestine as a land empty of a settled population or an agricultural heritage. The influence of the scholarship on these novels on my own writing is also considered

Go and Heal Our Kinship System

Keynote Speaker: Dr. Grace L. Dillon is an academic and author. She is an Anishinaabe professor in the indigenous nations studies program, in the school of gender, race, and nations, at Portland State University. Dr. Dillon is best known for coining the term indigenous futurism, which is a movement consisting of art, literature, and other forms of media which express indigenous perspectives of the past, present, and future in the context of science fiction and related sub-genres. Dr. Dillon is the editor of walking the clouds: an anthology of indigenous science fiction, which is the first anthology of indigenous science fiction short stories, published by the University of Arizona press in 2012. Join us for our annual Solidarity Town Hall program, an anchor discussion as part of Arabic American National Museum’s theme for Fall 2021 – Spring 2022: Istiqbal al Mustaqbal (Welcoming the Future). This year, the Town Hall is themed Imagining Decolonized Futures, highlighting futurist and sci-fi narratives as we imagine a world without colonial concepts. The Town Hall will feature keynote speaker: Anishinaabe academic and author Grace Dillon; and panelists: British Palestinian fiction writer Selma Dabbagh, multidisciplinary Afrofuturist artist Bryce Detroit, Canadian and Anishinaabe filmmaker Lisa Jackson; with moderator Hina Baloch, leader of the Research & Analytics team at GM. This is a virtual event taking place via Zoom