Romeo and Juliet in Palestine: Teaching Under Occupation by Tom Sperlinger
| Romeo and Juliet in Palestine: Teaching Under Occupation by Tom Sperlinger | |
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| Category: Autobiography | |
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Reviewer: Charlie Pullen
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| Summary: Tom Sperlinger's first book will certainly be called original and fresh, and it deserves to be praised as such: it is as complex and serious as the Palestinian/Israeli situation demands, but manages to be a lively read nonetheless. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 157 | Date: June 2015 |
| Publisher: Zero Books | |
| ISBN: 978-1782796374 | |
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Towards the end of Tom Sperlinger's first book, he says education can open people's eyes, making them aware 'that we make assumptions all of the time, without even knowing they are assumptions.' Romeo and Juliet in Palestine: Teaching Under Occupation is a fine example of this belief in learning, an assumption-shattering book that offers a perspective on Palestinian life not often seen on the news or in the papers.
Romeo and Juliet in Palestine documents the time Sperlinger spent teaching English literature at Al-Quds, a university in the Occupied West Bank. Sperlinger, who is Reader in English Literature and Community Engagement at the University of Bristol, is an accomplished teacher, dedicated to engaging students from non-traditional backgrounds, but teaching Shakespeare and Victorian short stories in one of the most volatile places on Earth demands that he learn a lot, too.
For the most part this is a personal memoir, packed with tales and anecdotes of his first visit to Israel and the West Bank, but in full this book is much more of a hybrid. Blended in with the personal writing are aspects of educational theory and literary criticism – not so much as to become an exclusively academic book – as well as those that might make Romeo and Juliet in Palestine be better described as a travel book. In exactly the way new encounters often encourage travellers to redress their own lives, the people he meets and the places he visits prompt Sperlinger's musings and ponderings on the literature he thought he was most familiar with and the state of higher education back home. The book will, therefore, suit students and academics as well as those readers merely intrigued by the topic in equal measure.
He writes in these brief and often quite disconnected vignettes that gradually build up a larger image of life and education at the University and the surrounding locations, while also focusing on the different students and staff members he meets during his stay. This is non-fiction, of course, but he employs complex storytelling and characterisation to make these individuals well-rounded; they are more than simply dull or passive victims of a politically-unstable region. Some of his students, it must be said, do not come across as remarkably likeable, and Al-Quds seems a far cry from British university seminars – the classes are huge; women lecturers are called 'Miss' rather than 'Doctor'. Indeed, at times it's necessary to be reminded that this is a university and not a disengaged secondary school. Yet, much is familiar, and not least the struggle to get all the students to read the set texts on the course!
The Palestine/Israel conflict is perhaps the issue of our time, the defining and divisive topic which can make a television debate explode and heat up any conversation in the pub. Naturally, some really tough and painful stories come from Sperlinger's students, making Romeo and Juliet in Palestine a touching account of these lives rather than simply a collection of detached observations. This is, moreover, where the titular reference to Shakespeare really comes in, since Sperlinger suggests that the power struggles and conflicts at the centre of these seemingly English dramas are only too relevant in the context of this dispute. Readers can make up their own minds whether this comparison works. It is also, perhaps, inevitable that a book like this will tread quite softly across what is obviously very sensitive and complicated political ground. For this reason, Sperlinger is carefully neutral in many ways, a decision which may prove frustrating for readers who take positions on either side of the subject.
For more on the controversial topic, The Wall Between Us by Matthew Small offers another personal account of a visit to the area, while A Senseless Squalid War: Voices From Palestine 1890s - 1948 by Norman Rose will suit the reader interested in an earlier period of Palestinian history. You might also enjoy Romeo and/or Juliet by Ryan North.
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You can read more book reviews or buy Romeo and Juliet in Palestine: Teaching Under Occupation by Tom Sperlinger at Amazon.com.
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