This seminar discusses Gaza as an example for the long-term historical development of cities in historical Syria and Palestine and in the wider Eastern Mediterranean region. In contemporary public discourse, Gaza tends to be characterized solely as a theater of ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, while the city and its region has been largely neglected in academic scholarship.
The Gaza Strip, a narrow stretch of land between the Mediterranean Sea, Egypt and Israel, is one of the most crowded places on the globe and its population is facing a severe humanitarian crisis. The history of Gaza and its plight today are usually related to the outcome of the 1948 War in which the Strip was first created and became the residence of Palestinian refugees. However, Gaza’s importance in earlier periods reached far beyond the territory of the ‘Strip’, since the city was an important hub for people, goods and ideas in the Eastern Mediterranean from Antiquity until the 20th century. From 1517 through the First World War, it was the central pillar of Ottoman rule over southern Palestine. It is especially from this period that we have a wealth of archival and literary sources on Gaza, most of which still await in-depth study.
The seminar’s central question is how to understand the interplay between a specific local context and broader trends of Eastern Mediterranean history. Essays and term papers shall discuss aspects of Gaza’s history in comparison to other Eastern Mediterranean cities.
Introductory reading:- Büssow, Johann. “Gaza”. In EI3. (Available in the campus network).
- Kursleiter/in: Adrian Bernhard
- Kursleiter/in: Johann Christian Daniel Büssow
- Kursleiter/in: Annika Jung