The Un-Chosen Body

Disability Culture in Israel

Ilana Szobel

$220

Hardback

Forthcoming
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English

Wayne State University Press
30 September 2025

The Arts: General & Reference; Disability: social aspects; Religious groups: social & cultural aspects; Human rights; Civil rights & citizenship

Brings crip aesthetics and disability justice into conversation with Israel studies.

In the first work to bring crip aesthetics into conversation with Israel studies, Ilana Szobel explores disability culture and disability justice through the work of artists with disabilities in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. This book outlines the production and performance of a range of projects by poets, filmmakers, and performers to examine how they reframe or reimagine accessibility in artistic, cultural, and political spaces through creative expression and suggests their works' potential for social transformation. Through close analysis of this vibrant underground subculture, Szobel proposes new avenues for understanding genealogies of art on disability, depictions of sexuality and vulnerability of disabled women, disability as political violence, community building among the disabled, and imagined disability futures. Szobel renders a clear critique of forms of oppression—ableism, sexism, heteronormativity, settler colonialism, and state violence—within Israel/Palestine and how artists with disabilities creatively address and undo their relationship to structures of power. For those interested in disability justice, gender, and creativity, Szobel illustrates how Israeli and Palestinian artists create new possibilities through their work.

By: Ilana Szobel
Imprint: Wayne State University Press
Country of Publication: United States [Currently unable to ship to USA: see Shipping Info]
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm,
ISBN: 9780814351826
ISBN 10: 0814351824
Pages: 280
Publication Date: 30 September 2025
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Ilana Szobel is the Braun Chair Professor of Modern Hebrew Literature at Brandeis University, specializing in Hebrew literature, women and gender studies, and disability studies. She is the author of Flesh of My Flesh: Sexual Violence in Modern Hebrew Literature, which was a finalist for the 2021 Best Book in Israel Studies. Szobel has also authored A Poetics of Trauma: The Work of Dahlia Ravikovitch and the poetry collection Once Upon a Days (Beshekvar hayamim habaim). Szobel was a 2019–20 Visiting Scholar at the Center for Jewish Studies at Harvard University as well as a 2023–24 Scholar-in-Residence at the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute at Brandeis University.