Palestine’s Magical Futures: Cinema and Dreams of Liberation

Visiting resident researcher Sanabel Abdelrahman hosted workshops around magical realism as a literary and cinematic mode that tells the Palestinian story. In a series of screenings, readings and discussions, the group investigated the potential application of magical realism storytelling in other forms of art. As described by her: "I approach magical realism as a literary mode used in settler-colonial and post-colonial contexts to resist the destruction of the colonized people’s spaces. My research investigates how Palestinian magical realism, with its strands of surrealism, Gothicism, science fiction, and fantasy, resists the ongoing Nakba. I am interested in figures and tropes such as ghosts, mythical creatures, dreams, metamorphosis, resurrection, animism, and the manipulation of time."