Holy Land in Transit: Colonialism and the Quest for Canaan (Middle East Studies Beyond Dominant Paradigms) - Hardcover

Salaita, Steven

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0815631251 ISBN 13: 9780815631255

Publisher: Syracuse University Press, 2006

Synopsis

Steven Salaita’s ambitious and thought-provoking work compares the dynamics of settler colonialism in the United States related to Native Americans with the circumstances in Israel related to the Palestinians, revealing the way in which politics influences literary production.

The author’s original approach is based not on similarities between the two disparate settler regions but rather on similarities between the rhetoric employed by early colonialists in North America and that employed by Zionist immigrants in Palestine. Meticulously examining histories, theories, and literary depictions of colonialism and interethnic dialects, Salaita identifies the commonalities in the myths employed by both groups as well as the "counter-discourse" cultivated in the literature of resistance by native peoples. He complements his analysis with personal observations of Palestinians in Lebanese refuge camps, where he encountered a sympathetic perception of American Indians.

The Holy Land in Transit presents one of the first intercommunal studies to assess the ways in which indigenous authors react to analogous colonial dynamics. With great energy and perception the author offers a fresh contribution to an emerging frame of reference for historical, political, literary, and cultural investigation.

About this title

About the Author:

Steven Salaita is assistant professor of English at Virginia Tech. He is the author of Anti-Arab Racism in the U.S.A. and Arab American Fictions, Cultures, and, Politics.

Review:

"The deftness with which Steven Salaita decodes the densely-packed Eurosupremacist narratives by which we have come to disapprehend the reality we inhabit is astonishing, on par in many respects with the work of Edward Said, Richard Drinnon and Anne McClintock. The Holy Land in Transit is an essential offering by one of the most promising - indeed, exiting - young scholars to emerge in recent years." - Ward Churchill, author of Fantasies of the Master Race"

About this edition

• Publisher: Syracuse University Press
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0815631251
• ISBN 13: 9780815631255
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 246