FSS: Faculty Affiliate Samer Al-Saber Gives Talk on Post-1967 Palestinian Performance

Presenting to a full house, Faculty Affiliate Samer Al-Saber (TAPS) shared his framework, the "theatrical front," for assessing the role of theatrical performance post-1967 Occupation, which became the primary site for cultural expression and resistance, thereby challenging power disparities. 

From its inception, Al-Saber asserted in his talk, this performance front embraced multiple identities and allowed these to co-exist at the site of confrontation, the occupied West Bank, thereby markedly distinguishing itself from the ideological tendencies of nationalist movements.

"It hadn't occurred to me to think about the ways social institutions like the military or political movements lend to a certain understanding of what a front is. I found it intriguing that the purposeful coalition building among members of the literary Palestinian Left during the time period Dr. Al-Saber studied appeared to mirror the processes that were shaping the broader culture," said Melissa Carolee Brown, Postdoctoral Fellow at the Clayman Institute, reflecting on Al-Saber's talk. 

Al-Saber has directed plays in the West Bank and is currently working on a book manuscript that includes the work he presented for CCSRE's Autumn Faculty Seminar Series. His teaching, practice, and scholarship focus on the intersection of cultural production and political conflict in the Middle East. Elsewhere Al-Saber has stated that he became interested in the theater of the Middle East precisely because “it consistently succeeds where politics and militarization fail."

About his current work, Al-Saber concludes, "Arab and Islamic societies are not merely byproducts of the modern state, colonial oppression, and their politics. Artists show us that a place is much larger and more complex than narrow nationalisms through their resilience, resistance, and refusal to limit their imagination."

Next academic year Samer Al-Saber will teach a course on Culture, Conflict and the Modern Middle East and another focusing on the work of Edward Said.

The Autumn Faculty Seminar was co-sponsored by TAPS, Stanford Arts, and the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies, of which he is also an affiliate faculty. 

BY PERLITA DICOCHEA | COMMUNICATIONS & EVENTS ASSOCIATE

This story was orginally published in the November 25, 2019 issue of the CCSRE Newsletter.