We are pleased to announce a recent transition in our flagship journal’s editorial team. We honor the editorship of Dr. Rashid Khalidi—who served in the role for over two decades—and welcome Dr. Sherene Seikaly as the new Editor of the Journal of Palestine Studies (JPS). She is the first woman to hold this position.
JPS has been the journal of record on Palestinian affairs since its founding in 1971. Khalidi began his tenure as editor of JPS in 2002, beginning a formative, powerful era in committed scholarship on Palestine. In her first editorial of 2024, Seikaly writes of Khalidi’s tenure:
“Through the vagaries, exigencies, and realities of drastically shifting geographies of Palestine, Khalidi guided the journal and the field through the pivotal and turbulent times of the second intifada, the building of the apartheid wall, the Camp David negotiations, the death of Yasser Arafat, the Israeli ‘disengagement’ from Gaza, the election of Hamas, the internecine struggle between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, and every single Israeli assault on the besieged Gaza Strip. He has led us in commemorating the loss of figures such as Edward Said, Mahmoud Darwish, and Salma Khadra Jayyusi. Throughout, Khalidi has maintained pages that featured analysis of justice and power, diplomacy and politics, and political economy and the state, while also shining a light on narration, testimonies, art, cinema, and popular culture.
Each issue of this journal is rooted in empirically groundbreaking findings, an unwavering attention to detail, and steadfast commitment to the struggle for and the insistence on Palestinian life. In his research and leadership, including as coeditor since 2020, Khalidi has taught us to ask the difficult questions, to think critically and comparatively, and to remain grounded in the contingencies and demands of history. His insistence on Palestinian life through and despite ‘dispersal, occupation, and geographic fragmentation’ is one of the many lessons he has offered us.”
Sherene Seikaly is an Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her book Men of Capital: Scarcity and Economy in Mandate Palestine (Stanford University Press, 2016) explores economy, territory, the home, and the body. Her forthcoming book, From Baltimore to Beirut: On the Question of Palestine, narrates a global history of capital, slavery, and dispossession. In addition to being the Editor of JPS, she directs the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at UCSB and serves as the co-editor of the Stanford Studies Middle Eastern and Islamic Societies and Cultures Series. She is also the co-editor of Jadaliyya.
Knowledge production and documentation are critical practices in combating erasure and false narratives. We are confident that, under Dr. Seikaly’s leadership, the Journal of Palestine Studies will continue its mission of liberatory knowledge production for and about Palestine and the Palestinians.