Togo Mizrahi and the Making of Egyptian Cinema

Book launch event with author Deborah Starr in conversation with Ariel Sheetrit (Open University of Israel) and Yaron Shemer (UNC, Chapel Hill).

Deborah Starr is Professor of Modern Arabic and Hebrew Literature and Film in the Department of Near Eastern Studies, and Director of the Jewish Studies Program. She received a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of Michigan. She writes and teaches about identity and intercommunal exchange in the modern Middle East, with a focus on the Jews of Egypt. She is the author of Togo Mizrahi and the Making of Egyptian Cinema (University of California Press, 2020)

Yaron Shemer is Associate Professor of Israel cultural studies and Jewish Studies at The University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.  He earned his BFA from Tel Aviv University and his MA and PhD in Film Studies from The University of Texas at Austin. 

Shemer is the author of Identity, Place, and Subversion in Contemporary Mizrahi Cinema in Israel (U. of Michigan Press, 2013).  In addition to his work on Israeli ethnic cinema, Shemer has also published articles on Middle Eastern cinema. His current research project is a comparative study of Israeli and Palestinian political cartoons.

Ariel M. Sheetrit (PhD, Harvard, 2007) is a lecturer in modern Arabic literature and Palestinian film at the Open University of Israel. She has published many scholarly articles and chapters on Arabic autobiography, fiction and film. Her book, A Poetics of Arabic Autobiography:  Between Dissociation and Belonging was published in 2020. She is currently working on a book on Palestinian literature.

Sponsored by Cornell University Jewish Studies Program, and Program for Jewish Arab Culture Studies at Ben Gurion University of the Negev and at Tel Aviv University