The Mahindra Humanities Center’s Seminar on Eighteenth Century Studies will present the following talk on October 27, 6:00 P.M.:
Professor Zoe Beenstock, University of Haifa “Historicizing Eighteenth-Century Palestine.”
Zoe Beenstock is associate professor of English Language and Literature at the University of Haifa. She is the author of The Politics of Romanticism: The Social Contract and Literature (2016), and her articles have appeared in journals that include SEL, Modern Language Quarterly, European Romantic Review, Philosophy and Literature, and Journal of the History of Ideas. She is currently a fellow in residence at the Huntington Library.
Professor Beenstock’s talk argues that the current decolonization of eighteenth-century studies has neglected Palestine in part due to the marginalization of non-classical antiquarian and biblical traditions. Examining the writings of British colonial administrators who were also biblical antiquarians, she shows an increasing turn to Palestine following colonial encounters with Native Americans during the Seven Years War. In their treatises and letters, British administrators laid the foundations for the future occupation of Palestine through comparisons between its indigenous populations and Native Americans. Beenstock thus extends the parameters of Edward Said’s foundational argument that Britain and France targeted Palestine for colonization by dating this process to the long eighteenth century and arguing that it involved a passage through antiquarianism and biblical modes instead of a secular imperialism.
Date: Thursday, October 27, 2022, 6:00pm
Location: Barker Center, Harvard University, Room 133, 12 Quincy St., Cambridge MA, 02138
This talk is open to all interested persons; We request that attendees wear masks during the presentation.