Week 8- Monday

Before reading Nitzan-Shiftan's article, I never realized how much architecture could be associated with national identity. I remember that Karen Armstrong touched on similar ideas several times, but it did not strike me to be as central to her writing as it was here. One of the most interesting parts to me was that post-1967 Israeli architecture attempted to assimilate the forms of "the conquered" in hopes of promoting peace (232). I wish this idea had been developed more though- how did the Palestinians view this attempt? Was it at all successful at bridging the two groups? Furthermore, I think it's also interesting that in the examples here, people were attempting to create and solidify national identity through architecture, whereas in the past, the architecture came first and the national identity came to be associated with. (For example, Greeks and Romans happened to make their columns differently, and so they became one of the markers of which power came to rule in a certain area. They did not specifically design their columns to be different than the others).

In the first section of Qleibo's work I was surprised that he said he found freedom in Jerusalem as a Palestinian. I understand that he then goes on to describe how it was where he grew up and how, even though he didn't necessarily know specific people, he knew their families and their culture. I wonder what sort of conditions he was living in to describe his life as free. Most other literature or perspectives I've heard/read describe the Palestinian plight, their oppression. But he seems to look past that and be grateful for what he can relate to. Even in the poem when he refers to all the other nations that were in power, his tone is still one of acceptance and he focuses on how his life is a poem that connects him back to his roots.