Course Overview
This seminar provides an interdisciplinary academic framework for examining the growing role of Palestinian women in crafting resistance narratives through digital platforms within the context of settler colonialism. It focuses on analyzing the digital narrative strategies and counter-narratives developed by Palestinian women activists to challenge dominant media representations, drawing on approaches from anti-colonial feminism, postcolonial media studies, and critical discourse analysis.
The seminar will also examine contemporary models of digital activism and analyzes global campaigns that have contributed to reshaping public awareness regarding Palestine. The seminar employs a critical interdisciplinary methodology that integrates feminist media analysis, postcolonial critique, and digital ethnography to examine the intersection of power, gender, and technology in the Palestinian context. It adopts Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to deconstruct online narratives, exposing the ideological structures that sustain settler-colonial and patriarchal discourses. Additionally, the seminar utilizes narrative inquiry and visual analysis to interpret digital storytelling, hashtags, and visual campaigns as forms of counter-hegemonic knowledge production and political expression.
*This course may be applied toward the Consortium’s NUIEC Certificate in Gender Studies.
Seminar Leaders
Dr. Hanan Alawna
Independent Scholar
COLUMBIA GLOBAL CENTER – AMMAN
Hanan Alawna, PhD, is a researcher and scholar specializing in literary and cultural studies, with a focus on women’s rights, feminism, and gender representation in Middle Eastern literature. Her current research at Columbia Global Center | Amman builds on her proposal Digital Resistance: Palestinian Women’s Activism in Online Spaces, which examines how social media platforms shape narratives of identity, resistance, and empowerment.
Dr. Ramzi Abdullah Mansour Naji
Assistant Professor of Linguistics
TAIZ UNIVERSITY
Ramzi Naji, Assistant Professor of Linguistics, has over a decade of experience in higher education and academic leadership. His expertise spans a broad range of linguistic disciplines, including sociolinguistics, morphology, and syntax, with a specific focus on the sociolinguistic impact of age and gender on language variation. He formerly served as the Head of the English Department and Translation Studies and as a member of the Academic Council at Al-Saeed University.
Syllabus and Readings
Course Schedule
march 13
Week 1: Gender, Power, & Colonial Knowledge
Hosted on Zoom
- Said, Orientalism, Intro (pp. 1–15);
- Foucault, “Truth and Power,” (pp. 109–120)
march 20
Week 2: Settler Colonialism and Narrative Erasure
Hosted on Zoom
- Wolfe, “Settler Colonialism…,” (pp. 387–400);
- Khalidi, The Hundred Years’ War, on Palestine, Intro, (pp. 12-26)
march 27
Week 3: Anti Colonial & Decolonial Feminism
Hosted on Zoom
- Abu-Lughod, Do Muslim Women (Still) Need Saving?, Ch. 1, (pp. 27–45);
- Mohanty,“Under Western Eyes,” (pp. 333-345)
April 3
Week 4: Palestinian Women Journalists
Hosted on Zoom
- Hill & Plitnick,Except for Palestine, Ch. 4, (pp. 96–110);
- Faulkner, “Photographic Witnessing, the Occupation and Palestinian Politics” (pp. 89-101).
April 10
Week 5: Activism and Affective Storytelling
Hosted on Zoom
- Papacharissi, “Affective Publics”, (pp. 1–12);
- Puar, The Right to Maim,Preface (pp. ix-xxiv).
April 17
Week 6: Visual Politics & Gendered Witnessing
Hosted on Zoom
- Frosh, “Eye, Flesh,World: Three Modes of Digital Witnessing” (pp. 121-134);
- Schankweiler, Straub & Wendl, “Image Testimonies: Witnessing in Times of Social Media” (pp.1-11)
April 24
Week 7: Hashtag Feminism & Global Campaigns
Hosted on Zoom
- Tufekci, Twitter and Tear Gas, Ch. 1 (pp. 3–27)
May 1
Week 8: Surveillance, Censorship & Gendered Risk
Hosted on Zoom
- Khamis & Dogbatse,“It’s Bisan from Gaza” (pp.1-14).
- Tawil-Souri, “Digital Occupation” (pp.27-39)
May 8
Week 9: Digital Archives & Epistemic Resistance
Hosted on Zoom
- Trouillot, Silencing the Past, “The Power in the Story” (pp. 1–15)
- Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?”, (pp. 66–80).
May 15
Week 10: Global South Feminist Futures
Hosted on Zoom
- Mohanty, Feminism Without Borders, Ch. 9, (pp. 221–240)
- Puar, The Right to Maim, Ch. 3 (pp.95-105)
Certificates of Satisfactory Completion
Participants who attend 8 out of 10 complete seminar sessions are eligible to receive a Certificate of Satisfactory Completion signed by the Dean of The New School for Social Research.
Participants who attend