Thesis: Melamed, Israeli Homemade Video Memorials and the Politics of Loss

Melamed, Laliv. Sovereign Intimacy: Israeli Homemade Video Memorials and the Politics of Loss, PhD dissertation. New York: New York University, 2015.
 
URL: http://gradworks.umi.com/37/40/3740826.html
 
Abstract

Sovereign Intimacy takes as its subject of investigation video memorialization of dead Israeli soldiers done by their close family and friends. Mixing private loss, home-made video production, military conduct, state politics, and an institutionalized commemoration, it redraws the affinities between affective intimacy and forms of governing. It delineates the reshaping of sovereignty by filial relationships, video practicing and aesthetics, state and military administration of death and mass media. Sovereign Intimacy inquires into the political currencies of mourning and loss.

The videos respond to an event triggered by operations of state violence—figured by military power—with a personal lamenting of the breaking of intimate ties. These videos are made by the family and for the family, through amateur and semi-amateur modes of production. Although they were meant to be privately circulated, this phenomenon emerged in tandem to the videos being broadcast on television during the events of the National Memorial Day.

Home-made video memorials become a standard of Israeli memorialization during the 1990s. Largely the result of waning public support of the Israeli occupation of the south of Lebanon, and of a growing disavowal of state authority, the phenomenon represented a potential challenge to hegemonic narratives and aesthetic forms, through the appropriation of memory and means of production. However, it did not make way to a new political voice to emerge. Instead, these videos emotionalized violence and victimized its deliverers. Furthermore, the broadcasting of the videos on television—allegedly as a tribute to the families, a communal gesture of listening and a call for solidarity—participated in a national economy of death in which the lives of Lebanese, Palestinians and marginalized people within Israeli society had no value. Lastly, the phenomenon of memorial videos normalized the growing militarization of civil society and neutralized any call for political action.

 

 

 

New Article: Kampf & Stolero, Computerized Simulation of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Kampf, Ronit, and  Nathan Stolero. “Computerized Simulation of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Knowledge Gap, and News Media Use.” Information, Communication & Society 18.6 (2015): 644-58.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2014.982142 

 

Abstract

Serious games like PeaceMaker are emerging as a new medium for peace education (PE). We focus on the assessment of this computerized simulation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in order to identify the effects it might have in helping to narrow the knowledge gap between the players. In addition, we examine the role of news media use about the conflict in knowledge acquisition after playing the game. We conducted an experimental study with the participation of 185 Israeli undergraduate students of Jewish and Palestinian origin. In order to gauge the effect of the game with regard to knowledge acquisition about the conflict, we used a pre- and post-intervention experimental design and utilized questionnaires. We found that the knowledge gap between participants who held high levels of knowledge about the conflict and those who held low levels of knowledge about it before playing the game narrowed after playing it. Second, participants holding more knowledge about the conflict before playing the game were more likely to win it than those holding less knowledge. Finally, the game narrowed the knowledge gap between participants who consumed television (TV) as a major source of information about the conflict and those who did not consume it. Our results indicate that serious games like PeaceMaker are effective as a tool for PE, because they are useful in increasing knowledge about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and narrowing the knowledge gap between the players, particularly for young people who are direct parties to this conflict and native to the online world.

Lecture: Alexandrowicz, 47 Years of Documentation (Taub NYU, April 8 2015)

 

4/8/2015 @ 5pm

19 University Place, Room 102

 Ra’anan Alexandrowicz presents 47 Years of Documentation

The documentation of the city of Hebron over the past five decades serves as a case study for examining broader questions regarding documentation, history, and politics. From the newsreels of the late 1960s, through TV coverage from the 1970s and 1980s, all the way to ubiquitous YouTube clips in the last decade, the process sheds light on the dramatic changes that have occurred in Hebron, and mainly on the transformations that have taken place in the act of documentation during that period of time.

Over the last two decades, Ra’anan Alexandrowicz has examined the social and political reality in Israel and in Palestine through a series of acclaimed cinematic works, including Martin (1999), The Inner Tour (2001), James’s Journey to Jerusalem (2003), and The Law in These Parts (2011), which won Best International Documentary at Sundance, a Peabody award, as well as best documentary at Jerusalem Film Festival and several other prizes.

RSVP here.

New Article: Ribke, Female Fashion Models’ Transition into Israeli Politics

Ribke, Nahuel. “Modeling Politics? Female Fashion Models’ Transition into Israeli Politics.” European Journal of Culturla Studies 17.2 (2014): 170-186.

 

URL: http://ecs.sagepub.com/content/17/2/170

 

Abstract

This article analyses the recent phenomenon of the passage of former models/television hosts into Israeli politics. The transition of these former models into politics can be seen as part of a wider phenomenon of Israeli media celebrities’ transition to professional politics. Despite the wide media coverage and the heated public debates around the fashion models’ candidacy, until now there has been no serious analysis of this phenomenon. Distancing itself from the popular derogatory approaches toward the participation of celebrities in politics, this study proposes to examine their entry into the political sphere seriously, incorporating a cultural and historical perspective along with an analysis of the dynamics of ethnic and gender relations in Israeli politics.