Call for Paper Submissions

February 1, 2022

New Directions in Palestinian Studies joins the Institute for Palestine  Studies, Birzeit University, Columbia University's Center for Palestine Studies, University of Exeter's European Centre for Palestine Studies, and SOAS University of London's Centre for Palestine Studies in sponsoring a conference to reassess the British Mandate in Palestine, one century after the Mandate was imposed. 

The British Mandate (1922–1948) represents over a quarter-century in the modern history of Palestine during which the groundwork was laid for the usurpation of Palestinian political rights and the establishment of a Zionist state. It is a glaring instance of a colonial enterprise expressly designed to disenfranchise indigenous peoples conducted under the umbrella of international legitimacy. It is also the first and last time in modern history that the whole of Palestine has existed as a single polity, bringing together Palestinian Arabs and Jews, natives and settlers, and colonized and colonizers, within one political-legal framework, albeit on radically unequal terms. The hundredth anniversary of the beginning of the Mandate is an apt occasion to revisit and reassess it as an episode in the history of Palestine. 

The conference is provisionally scheduled for October 2022 and is planned to be held in a hybrid format, with an in-person component in Palestine, circumstances permitting. Abstracts of approximately 300 words and short bios should be submitted for blind review, in English or Arabic, to conference@palestine-studies.org. Submission deadline: April 30, 2022.