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RSC Public Seminar Series, Michaelmas term 2025

Series convened by Professor Tom Scott-Smith and Professor Catherine Briddick

About the talk

Israel’s assault on Gaza, which was launched after the Hamas-led attacks of October 7, is now widely recognised as a genocide. Yet the violence in Gaza, and Palestine-Israel as a whole, did not begin in October 2023. This talk takes its history back to the original ethnic cleansing of 1948 (known in Arabic as the nakba or catastrophe), when 750,000 Palestinians were forcibly displaced, with more than 200,000 fleeing to Gaza. Over subsequent decades, Israeli military occupations caused further displacements, juxtaposed with immobilising measures that increasingly confined Palestinians to the Gaza Strip’s 141 square miles. The situation in Gaza today, whereby Israeli forces have displaced virtually the entire population and the government is openly planning their expulsion, can only be fully understood within this long-term trajectory. This talk will trace the historical antecedents of displacement and immobility in Gaza, arguing that the Strip is a site of modern refugee history at its most extreme.

About the speaker

Dr Anne Irfan is Lecturer in Interdisciplinary Race, Gender and Postcolonial Studies at University College London, where she researches histories of displacement and humanitarianism in Palestine. She is author of the books Refuge and Resistance: Palestinians and the international refugee system (Columbia University Press, 2023) and A Short History of the Gaza Strip (Simon & Schuster/ WW Norton, 2025), and has published award-winning articles in journals including the Journal of Refugee Studies, Contemporary Levant and Jerusalem Quarterly. In addition to her academic work, Dr Irfan has written for The Nation, The Washington Post and +972 magazine, and has appeared on BBC, Al Jazeera and ABC News. She also teaches the class Colonial Past, Refugee Present on the RSC's International Online School in Forced Migration.

Please register to attend this event.

The seminar will be followed by drinks in the Hall.

All enquiries should be directed to rsc-outreach@qeh.ox.ac.uk.

Annual Elizabeth Colson Lecture

The Annual Elizabeth Colson Lecture is held in Trinity term. It is named after Professor Elizabeth Colson, a renowned anthropologist.

Annual Harrell-Bond Lecture

The Annual Harrell-Bond Lecture is named in honour of Dr Barbara Harrell-Bond, the founding Director of the Refugee Studies Centre. It is held each year in Michaelmas term.

Public Seminar Series

Each term the RSC holds a series of public seminars, held on Wednesday evenings at Queen Elizabeth House. Click here for details of forthcoming seminars.

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Forthcoming events

Displacement, solidarity, counter-government

Wednesday, 22 October 2025, 5pm to 6pm @ Seminar Room 1, Oxford Department of International Development, 3 Mansfield Road, Oxford OX1 3TB

Human rights elites at the United Nations: Felix Ermacora and the first human rights fact finding missions (1967-1993)

Wednesday, 29 October 2025, 5pm to 6pm @ Seminar Room 1, Oxford Department of International Development, 3 Mansfield Road, Oxford OX1 3TB

Migration and displacement: My grandmother, Lausanne, and some lessons for the present

Wednesday, 05 November 2025, 5.15pm to 6.15pm @ Mary Ogilvie Lecture Theatre, St Anne's College, 56 Woodstock Rd, Oxford OX2 6HS

Cities of refuge in an age of displacements

Wednesday, 12 November 2025, 5pm to 6pm @ Seminar Room 1, Oxford Department of International Development, 3 Mansfield Road, Oxford OX1 3TB

Law unbound? Asylum and migration law in the UK post-Brexit

Tuesday, 18 November 2025, 5pm to 6pm @ Seminar Room, European Studies Centre, 70 Woodstock Road, Oxford OX2 6HR

Attacking health: Understanding the dynamics and broader impacts of violence against healthcare

Wednesday, 19 November 2025, 5pm to 6pm @ Seminar Room 1, Oxford Department of International Development, 3 Mansfield Road, Oxford OX1 3TB