Hila Amit (writer, researcher) & Mati Shemoelof (poet, writer), Chair: Georges Khalil (Forum Transregionale Studien / EUME)
This talk traces queerness as a subversive standpoint against conventional norms which exceed the heteronormative framework. In their writing and mutual work together as part of “Anu”, Hila Amit and Mati Shemoelof seek to think through the idea of queering the language, the queer aspect of diasporic positioning and queering notions of belonging and nationalism. What would it mean to weave Arabic into Hebrew literature produced in contemporary Israel? What does Mizrahi culture mean outside of the tensed boiling pot of Zionism? In what ways the diaspora can transform the home and its national discourse? They wish to find the connections and alliances which can be formulated within these fluid territories or discussion.
Hila Amit (b.1985, Tel Aviv) is a writer, a researcher and a Hebrew teacher. She was born in Israel in 1985 to a Jewish family with Iranian-Syrian ethnic origins. She studied creative writing at the Tel Aviv University and holds a PhD in the field of Gender Studies from SOAS, University of London. Her research focuses on political activism, queer kinship, national belonging and diasporic communities. In her book, A Queer Way Out – The Politics of Queer Emigration from Israel (Albany: SUNY, 2018) she argues that migration from Israel is a subversive act that symbolizes a refusal to answer Zionism in the currency of heroism and active resistance. The book was awarded the AMEWS (Association of Middle East Women's Studies) Book Award.
Hila Amit’s fiction appeared in Lilith, Jalta, Emrys Journal & The Washington Square Review. Her story, 'The Kinneret', was recently selected for the Sue Lile Inman Fiction Prize. She received fellowships from The Vermont Studio Center and the McDowell Colony. Her short stories collection, Moving On From Bliss (Tel-Aviv: Am Oved, 2016), was awarded the Israeli Ministry of Culture Prize for Debut Authors, and was recently selected as one of the 10 best literary works in Hebrew for the years 2010-2020. In 2014 she established the International Hebrew School, through which she aims to advance Hebrew learning using a queer, feministic and pluralistic method. Her book Hebrew For All (עברית לכולן) was just recently published. She is the co-founder of “Anu אנו نحن: Jews and Arabs Writing in Berlin”, and is curating literary events which bring together Jews and non-Jews with a Middle Eastern heritage together.
Mati Shemoelof was born in 1972 in Haifa. He is a poet, editor and writer. He has published seven poetry books so far. The last of these was published in Germany in 2019 in a bilingual edition "Baghdad | Haifa | Berlin", published by Aphorismha Verlag [Berlin]. His first article book “An eruption from the east: Re visiting the emergence of the Mizrahi artistic explosion and it's imprint on the Israeli cultural narrative 2006-2019“ was published on “Iton 77” publishers in Israel (2020).
His first collection of stories book "Remnants of the cursed book " was published in 2014 (Kinneret Zmora Dvir, edited by Tamar Bialik and Prof. Yigal Schwartz) and won the "Yekom Tarbut" site award for the same year. “Das Künftige Ufer” a radio sketch that he wrote aired in 2018 on German radio station WDR.
His books have received various awards, including the Art Lottery Commission grant, a literature grant from the Rabinowitz Foundation, a scholarship from the Acum Foundation. He was among the founders of "Guerrilla Culture" who connected artistic work and social struggle. In Berlin he founded “Poetic Hafla” group that creates literary & performances events. Now is working on a new literary project “Anu אנו نحن: Jews and Arabs writing in Berlin”.