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Dr. Ussama Makdisi
The IGI Series on Global Responsibilities brings multidisciplinary and global perspectives to major contemporary questions. For calendar year 2025, our spotlight is on Palestine in the world today.
In alignment with our mission to foster a supportive environment for all members of our university community, these events are open to all persons regardless of race, color or national origin.
The events in this series are sponsored by: Center for Advanced Study; Center for African Studies; Center for East Asian & Pacific Studies; Center for Global Studies; Center for Latin American & Caribbean Studies; Center for South Asian & Middle Eastern Studies; Center for the Study of Global Gender Equity; European Union Center; Illinois Global Institute; LAS Global Studies; Lemann Center for Brazilian Studies; The Program in Arms Control & Domestic & International Security; Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center.
Co-sponsoring units house diverse perspectives, but all hold that a healthy university atmosphere requires discussion, debate, and dialogue.
Upcoming events
Film screening: "From Ground Zero"
4 p.m. Oct 8
1080 Lucy Ellis Conference Center (707 S. Mathews Ave., Urbana)
"From Ground Zero" is a collection of 22 short films made in Gaza. Initiated by Palestinian director Rashid Masharawi, the project was born to give a voice to 22 Gazan filmmakers to tell the untold stories of the current war on film. This screening is sponsored by the Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies and the Arabic Language Program.
Past events
An Evening with Lena Khalaf Tuffaha
5 p.m. Sept. 16
Knight Auditorium, Spurlock Museum (600 S Gregory St., Urbana)
Lena Khalaf Tuffaha is a poet, essayist, and translator. She is the author of three books of poetry: "Something About Living" (UAkron, 2024), winner of the 2024 National Book Award and the 2022 Akron Prize for Poetry; "Kaan & Her Sisters" (Trio House Press, 2023), finalist for the 2024 Firecracker Award and honorable mention for the 2024 Arab American Book Award; and "Water & Salt" (Red Hen, 2017), winner of the 2018 Washington State Book Award and honorable mention for the 2018 Arab American Award. Tuffaha is also the author of two chapbooks, "Arab in Newsland" (Two Sylvias Press, 2017), winner of the 2016 Two Sylvias Prize, and "Letters from the Interior" (Diode, 2019), finalist for the 2020 Jean Pedrick Chapbook Prize.
Why is Palestine Important?
4 p.m. Feb. 25, 2025
1000 Lincoln Hall, 702 S. Wright St., Urbana
Speaker: Ussama Makdisi, professor of history and May Ziadeh Chair in Palestinian and Arab Studies at UC Berkeley
Lyd
5 p.m. March 27, 2025
112 Gregory Hall, 810 S. Wright St., Urbana
Join a screening of the film "Lyd," a story of a city that once connected Palestine to the world--what it once was, what it is now, and what it could have become. A discussion led by Professor Laura Goffman, Department of History, will follow.
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Lyd
Book Talk: Transnational Palestine with Nadim Bawalsa
noon, April 1, 2025
Virtual
Tens of thousands of Palestinians migrated to the Americas in the final decades of the nineteenth century and early decades of the twentieth. By 1936, an estimated 40,000 Palestinians lived outside geographic Palestine. Transnational Palestine is the first book to explore the history of Palestinian immigration to Latin America, the struggles Palestinian migrants faced to secure Palestinian citizenship in the interwar period, and the ways in which these challenges contributed to the formation of a Palestinian diaspora and to the emergence of Palestinian national consciousness. Nadim Bawalsa, a historian of modern Palestine, will lead a discussion about the book. Bawalsa holds a PhD in History and Middle Eastern & Islamic Studies from New York University.
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Nadim Bawalsa
Exhibit: The Art of Recreating Transnational Solidarity Against Global Apartheids
April 10-May, 2025
Murphy Art Gallery University YMCA
This exhibition brings together three voices against global apartheids: grassroots activists for humane urbanisms, (digital stories); University of Illinois protests and encampments (archival images 1969s-2024); and Woman Life Freedom movement (artwork).
An opening reception will be held 5:30-7:30 p.m. April 10, 2025, with Mirage music ensemble performance 6:30 p.m.
From noon to 1 p.m. on April 11, 2025, a Friday Forum discussion will be held in Latzer Hall, University YMCA.
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art exhibition
Turmoil and Solidarity: Being Palestinian in Champaign-Urbana in a time of genocide
6:30-8 p.m. April 11, 2025
Channing Murray Foundation, 1209 W. Oregon St., Urbana
Speakers: Dua Aldasouqi, Muslim Action Committee (and others TBD)
Unmixing the Holy City: Religion, Politics, and Neighborhood Segregation in 19th-20th Century Jerusalem (Michelle Campos)
The Palestinian National Movement Between Constitutionalism and Revolt, 1929-1939" (Charles Anderson)
9 a.m. - 1 p.m. May 2, 2025
Latzer Hall YMCA, 1001 S. Wright St. Champaign
Speakers: Michelle Campos and Charles Anderson
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Michelle Campos
Michelle Campos is an associate professor of History and Jewish Studies at Pennsylvania State University. The author of "Ottoman Brothers: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Early Twentieth Century Palestine," Campos is completing a book on neighborhood life and intercommunal relations in 19th and early 20th century Jerusalem. She co-edited the translated memoirs of a Sephardi Jewish public figure in Palestine ("Between Jaffa and Tel Aviv, 1870–1930: A Memoir" by Yosef Eliyahu Chelouche, forthcoming with Brandeis University Press) and is co-editing a collaborative volume on “Reimagining Jewish Life in the Modern Middle East.”
This event is co-sponsored by the Department of History, The Program in Jewish Culture & Society, and the Unit for Criticism and Interpretative Theory.