The View from here – The Challenges of Teaching Gender Issues in Drama at An-Najah National University

Drawing on the challenges I have faced in my feminist analysis of Renaissance drama, this article sheds light on traditional approaches to teaching Othello in Palestine and the responses generated by my counter discussions of this domestic tragedy. My approach aims to reveal the destructive discourse of gossip, the objectification of women, and male refusal to listen to the female voice. While education is a means of emancipation and liberation within the Israeli-Palestinian context, I explore how the traditional way of teaching the play can advertently and inadvertently align with colonial strategies that stifle students’ critical thinking and their potential to emancipate themselves from the network of oppressive traditions and in extension perpetuate the Israeli occupation of Palestine.