Israeli Speculative Fiction Book Launch

Join us for the book launch and conversation for Israeli Speculative Fiction: Beyond Is/real with the editors and contributors. The event will feature editors Elana Gomel and Vered Weiss speaking in person, and the other contributors participating virtually.

*Complimentary book copies are available to the first 20 to request at Jewishst@msu.edu, by March 19.

Israeli Speculative Fiction: Beyond Is/real outlines some of the main elements that locate Israeli speculative fiction in relation to world speculative literature on the one hand, and features that render it unique on the other. Furthermore, the book exposes the diversity of Israeli speculative literature production. For decades Israeli literature production and research seemed to focus almost entirely on realistic genres. However, a closer examination reveals not only the prevalence of speculative literature in Israeli culture, but also its significance in shaping both enduring and emerging ideas about Israeli identities. Recognizing the significance of speculative literature in the reconfiguration of modern Israeli identities will expand and deepen conversations about Israeli literature and culture.

Offering an overview of Israeli speculative fiction, the book includes essays about Israeli temporality and spatiality, exploring works by seminal Israeli authors such as Assaf Gavron, Shimon Adaf, Ishay Sarid, and Lavie Tidhar. Beyond Is/real is the first book to cover Israeli speculative fiction from H. N. Bialik’s gothic epic poem ‘Be’ir Ha’harega’ (1903/4) to twenty-first-century Palestinian Israeli speculative fiction such as Saleem Haddad’s ‘Song of the Birds’ and Jumaana Abdu’s ‘Down Under’.

Israeli Speculative Fiction: Beyond Is/real invites readers to enter conversations about Israeli culture that go beyond discourses about what is real, and encounter, instead, discussions about how Israelis use speculative fiction to imagine what might be.

Elana Gomel is an Associate Professor at the Department of English and American Studies at Tel-Aviv University and an award-winning fiction writer with numerous short stories, novellas, and novels.

Vered Weiss is Assistant Professor at The Center for Integrative Studies in the Arts and Humanities and is core faculty member of The Michael and Elaine Serling Institute for Jewish Studies and Modern Israel at Michigan State University.

Contributors: Vered Karti Shemtov; Sheldon Teitelbaum and Emanuel Lottem; Lynn Levanon; Nardeen Dow; Oded Nir; Rachel Cordasco; Keren Omry; Rina Jean Baroukh; Hadas Elber-Aviram; Yossi Mendelovich; and Ben Baruch Blich.

Co-sponsors: College of Arts and Letters, James Madison College, College of Social Science, Residential College of Arts and Humanities, International Studies and Programs, Asian Studies Center