featuring Leena Dallasheh (Humboldt State University), Shay Hazkani (University of Maryland), Sherene Seikaly (University of California, Santa Barbara) with Sarah Anne Minkin (FMEP). In recent weeks the world’s attention turned to Palestinians in Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan neighborhoods fighting forced displacement from their longtime homes — displacement that, in the eyes of many Palestinians, is part of an ongoing process of dispossession that started in 1948 and continues through the present day. Palestinians call this process of displacement, dispossession, and exile “the Nakba” – Arabic for “the catastrophe” – which refers to the estimated 750,000 Palestinians who were expelled from their homes and lands during the creation of the state of Israel. For decades, stories of the Nakba – both personal experiences and an historical accounting of facts – have been systematically hidden, discredited, or ignored. Scholars, both Palestinian and non-Palestinian, have struggled to document and establish that history and challenge the denialism and mythologies – like the myths that “the Arabs” intended to “push the Jews into the sea,” that Palestinians left their homes at the behest of Arab armies, or that pre-1948, Arab residents of Palestine had no shared Palestinian identity or real links to the land – that have flourished in its place. In this context, we have invited three leading scholars of the Nakba to talk about how they approach researching, writing, and teaching this history — and the importance of amplifying personal, individual stories as a critical point of access to understanding nationalism, colonialism, citizenship, and the construction of racial categories in the Middle East.