An Aesthetic Occupation: The Immediacy of Architecture and the Palestine ConflictIn An Aesthetic Occupation Daniel Bertrand Monk unearths the history of the unquestioned political immediacy of “sacred” architecture in the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis. Monk combines groundbreaking archival research with theoretical insights to examine in particular the Mandate era—the period in the first half of the twentieth century when Britain held sovereignty over Palestine. While examining the relation between monuments and mass violence in this context, he documents Palestinian, Zionist, and British attempts to advance competing arguments concerning architecture’s utility to politics. Succumbing neither to the view that monuments are autonomous figures onto which political meaning has been projected, nor to the obverse claim that in Jerusalem shrines are immediate manifestations of the political, Monk traces the reciprocal history of both these positions as well as describes how opponents in the conflict debated and theorized their own participation in its self-representation. Analyzing controversies over the authenticity of holy sites, the restorations of the Dome of the Rock, and the discourse of accusation following the Buraq, or Wailing Wall, riots of 1929, Monk discloses for the first time that, as combatants looked to architecture and invoked the transparency of their own historical situation, they simultaneously advanced—and normalized—the conflict’s inability to account for itself. This balanced and unique study will appeal to anyone interested in Israel or Zionism, the Palestinians, the Middle East conflict, Jerusalem, or its monuments. Scholars of architecture, political theory, and religion, as well as cultural and critical studies will also be informed by its arguments. |
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actually administration Adorno al-Islami al-A'la al-Majlis al-Masjid al-Aqsa wa'l-Amakin al-Sharif allegory Amin al-Husayni apotropaic appears Aqsa Mosque Arab Arab Bureau architecture argued argument Arlozorov attempt Benjamin Bentwich Britain British Buraq C. R. Ashbee Cambridge claims Colonial 48 Commission conflict crisis December Dialectics Dome E. T. Richmond Papers Ernest Tatham Richmond Essays figure Gilbert Clayton Golgotha Gordon Government grand mufti Hajj Hajj Amin Haram Hebrew Hegel Herbert Samuel Hirasat al-Masjid al-Aqsa Holy Land Holy Places Holy Sepulchre holy sites Ibid immanent immediacy inscription interpretation Islamic Israel Jam'iyyat Hirasat al-Masjid Jerusalem Jewish Agency Jews Kisch London Mammon Mandate Mass ment modern mond Mond's monuments Moslem Musa Kazim National Palestine Palestinian picture pogrom political present PRO/CO question referring religious Report representation Rock Ronald Storrs Spirit subaltern suggested Supreme Muslim Council symbol Temple Theodor Adorno theory tiles tion trans University Press violence wa'l-Amakin al-Islamiyya al-Muqaddasa Wailing Wall Walter Benjamin York Zionist