Graduation Date
5-2004
Document Type
Master's Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Department or Program
Graduate Humanities
Department or Program Chair
Harlan Stelmach, PhD
First Reader
Jan Van Stavern, PhD
Second Reader
John Savant
Abstract
Both historical and personal essay, this culminating project is a creative non-fiction work exploring the modern historical roots of the Israel/Palestine conflict. Part I surveys the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Palestine, centering on two key figures: Israeli Prime Minister, David Ben Gurion (1886-1973), and Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Muslim Leader Hajj Amin al-Husayni (1897-1974). Interweaving historical fact, myth, personal story, and biography, with Israeli and Palestinian poetry and poses by the author, themes such as relationship to land, attachment to home, and the displacement created by industrialization upon a traditional, rural lifestyle are explored. Part II relates the personal experience of the author at a women's Middle East peace conference in Oslo, while comparing the contradictions of Alfred Nobel (1833-1896), inventor of war munitions and progenitor of the Nobel Peace Prize, with the contradictions found within Israeli and Palestinian societies.
Included in
Islamic World and Near East History Commons, Other Arts and Humanities Commons, Poetry Commons
Comments
A prologue, reflecting how the author's views have developed since first writing her thesis, has been added to the original document.