About Rana Issa
Rana Issa is a Palestinian writer, translator and cultural producer whose work centers on literary and contemporary artistic practices intertwined with Arabic cultural history. She works at the intersection between public humanities, activist engagements, and academic curiosity. She is a co-founder and artistic director of Masahat.no, a dissemination platform for Arab art and culture in exile. Issa’s work has appeared in leading journals, platforms and presses, and she has collaborations with international artists from the region in the fields of film, performance arts, visual arts and sculpture.
In this seminar, Rana Issa will discuss the role of essay writing in her practice, including excerpts from her forthcoming book ‘Ummiyat’: an autobiographical history that constructs feminist legacies of motherhood and language through modes of exposure, confession and exhibitionism. By working to display, uncover, and reveal sites of trauma, the text attempts to come to terms with how we speak about the unspeakable and why it matters.
Some of Rana Issa’s publications:
Issa, Rana. The Modern Arabic Bible: Translation, Dissemination and Literary Impact. (2022). Edinburgh University Press.
Issa, Rana. Nakba, Sumud, Intifada: A Personal Lexicon of Palestinian Loss and Resistance (2023-10-25), The Funambulist Magazine.
