The Society for Arab Music Research is pleased to share with you the first of our education initiative series on Palestinian music and cultural practices. Curated with university-level music and dance educators in mind, “Educational Resources on Palestine” offers a set of resources for those who wish to address Palestine and Palestine studies in their classrooms, especially in light of the recent escalation in Gaza. We invite you to think of these resources as a starting point for understanding the role of music, dance, sound, and performance in Palestinian everyday life, cultural histories, and political resistance.

Resources include articles and manuscripts, documentaries and feature films, musical recordings and transcripts, and online archives. They also include suggestions for how to facilitate discussions of difficult topics, negotiate potentially contentious issues, and how to support students vulnerable to Islamophobia, anti-Palestinian racism, and antisemitism in the classroom and on campus.

As ethnomusicologists, we are keenly aware of the particular insights that the study of music and dance can offer into the histories, values, politics, and daily practices of a people or culture. The study of Palestinian cultural practices is an essential perspective for understanding the conflict. Palestinians have continuously engaged with music, dance, and other performing arts as methods of expressing themselves, fostering joy and belonging, sharing oral history, preserving communal memory and heritage, and mobilizing political action. This effort is made in support of Palestinians and to promote complex understandings of Palestinian perspectives, social life, and cultural practices. We offer these to our colleagues in the spirit of centering cultural practices as critical to, rather than separate from, Palestinian history and politics.

We hope that you and your students benefit from this repository and invite you to share these resources widely with your colleagues. And, please stay tuned for upcoming panels on Palestinian musical culture, organized by SAMR as part of this educational initiative.

With care,

SAMR