Palestine in the popular imagination - Investigating how Palestine has been imagined in the public sphere in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Led by Dr Anastasia Valassopoulos, Senior Lecturer in World Literatures, this British Academy and Leverhulme Trust funded project brings together and prioritizes the images and themes that have dominated the visualization of the land of Palestine internationally.

Photojournalism, poster art, film, documentary, cartography, photography and humanitarian organizations have created the lasting images associated with Palestine. Guiding the investigation into these materials are sociocultural moments that have framed their representation: Palestine as the Holy Land; 'aid' films, the construction of the ‘refugee’ and the role of the United Nations; global activist cinema; the cultural representation of international terrorism and, finally, the visual cultures of ‘negotiation’ and the peace accords.

Brought together for the first time, these materials reveal a sustained and uninterrupted centrality of Palestine in the popular imagination.

For more information about the project, please contact the Principal Investigator, Dr Anastasia Valassopoulos. A list of Dr Valassopoulos's publications on the subject and her contact details are available on her University research profile.