What does academic freedom mean when intellectual, political and pedagogical freedom is restricted by siege? What does it mean to mentor youth towards critical inquiry when we ourselves are battling to stay upright? […] Still, we carry on. Because to stop would be to relinquish one of the last remnants of our agency.

– Dr Ahmed Kamal Junina, The Guardian, 19 August 2025.

Brief Encounters, the open-access peer-reviewed journal funded by the Consortium for the Humanities and the Arts South-east England (CHASE), has published the first contributions to a special issue composed of work by students and faculty of the English Department at Al-Aqsa University in Gaza.

Dr Ahmed Kamal Junina, Head of the Al-Aqsa University English Department, has joined the editorial board as guest senior editor, working with CHASE doctoral researchers George Clutterbuck, Chris Bates, Millie Riddell and Emily Gresham Beamer to form the editorial team.

The special issue amplifies the voices of students and academics in Gaza, highlighting the significance of their knowledge to discussions on pedagogical resilience, challenges and adaptive strategies, and deepens global understanding of the war on Gaza since October 2023.

Since the call for papers in April 2025, submissions have responded to and defied the lived realities of indiscriminate bombardment, enforced displacement, and the systematic denial of vital resources in creative and critical forms of writing and image-making. To quote contributor Sondos Abdalfattah Sobih, this work emerges despite the fact that ‘[i]n Gaza, silence can be safer’.

Offering a counter-vocabulary to the violence of occupation at a time when even speech itself carries risks, the contributors’ work attends to profound and immeasurable loss whilst upholding shared tenacity and hope. As Shams Mazen Rajab writes, the ‘inherent unity’ found in Palestine ‘is not a passive response’, but a ‘dynamic and evolving’ source of survival and connection.

The first contributions to the special issue are now available via the Brief Encounters website. We invite you to engage with this work in a commitment to Palestinian scholars’ determination to continue teaching and learning despite the mass destruction of higher education in Palestine. In the words of Maryam Sharif Abed, ‘We ask you to hear us, share our words, and help us keep our dreams alive’.

Background

In late March 2025, Dr Junina established RECONNECT, an initiative dedicated to supporting displaced learners and promoting academic collaboration across borders. RECONNECT has supported the creation of the special issue and provided the scholars from all over the world with a unique opportunity to engage in peer-to-peer exchange with students and faculty in Gaza. Recordings of past sessions are available to watch on YouTube.

On 16 July 2025, Dr Junina published an article in the journal Globalisation, Societies and Education entitled ‘Displaced but not replaced: challenges, adaptations, and resilience of higher education in Gaza in the context of war and scholasticide’. The article documents Dr Junina’s lived experience of teaching university courses and leading the English Department during wartime, providing a vital context for the work contained in the special issue.

The special issue was made possible thanks to Friends of Palestinian Universities (formerly Friends of Birzeit University), who organised a webinar titled ‘Stories of Resilience from Palestinian Universities’ on 28 January 2025, which is now available to view on their website. It was at this event that Dr Junina and George Clutterbuck were first introduced.

Latest Activities

On 11 October 2025, Dr Junina and three student representatives of RECONNECT – Menna Saber Abo Salem, Ruba Khalid Al-Faleet and Sojood Bakroon – joined Bradley Tuck, Sussex researcher and founder of the Exploding Appendix research collective, for a discussion about living and working under siege in Gaza. Watch or listen to their conversation on the Exploding Appendix website.

At the CHASE Encounters Autumn Conference 2025, Dr Junina, his colleague Dr Yehya El-Khoudary, Al-Aqsa University graduate Wedad Badra, and CHASE alumna Joy Stacey took part in a panel titled ‘Representing Palestine: Resistance, Advocacy and the Work of Remembrance’. A recording of the discussion can be viewed on Vimeo.

Wedad reflected on her decision to organise a graduation ceremony for 150 of her peers in Al-Aqsa University’s English department – the first such ceremony to take place in Gaza since October 2023. In this video, you can see highlights from the celebrations that day.

Joy discussed the making of their PhD film انتي صامدة (She the Steadfast) (2023), inspired by Palestinian dressmaking culture. The film stitches together collaborative women’s theatre performances to explore contemporary Palestinian women’s lives and heritage. Sign up to the film mailing list for updates about forthcoming screenings.

For More Information

To learn more and be updated on forthcoming contributions to the Special Issue, follow Brief Encounters via Instagram and BlueSky, or get in touch by emailing chase.reconnect@outlook.com.