FACULTY OF CULTURE AND SOCIETY | Seminar
Karène Sanchez-Summerer: Cultural Diplomacy from the Margins

Welcome to a GP seminar!

Prof. Karène Sanchez-Summerer (University of Groningen): “Cultural Diplomacy from the Margins: Arab Christians, Europe, and the remaking of the Holy Land, 1918–1948”

Speaker

Karène Sanchez Summerer is Professor, Chair of Middle Eastern Studies and co-director of the Centre for Historical Studies at Groningen University. Her research focuses on modern Middle Eastern social and cultural history. Her research and teaching interests include Christian Arab communities of and in the Middle East Middle East, a relational cultural and social history of Ottoman and Mandate Palestine, and non-majority groups in/ from the Middle East in diasporas. She is particularly interested in engaging with multilateral transnational connections, still understudied in favour of national historiographies and periodisation.

Abstract

How did Arab Christians in Mandate Palestine navigate European imperialism while reshaping cultural diplomacy from the ground up? This seminar explores the overlooked agency of Middle Eastern communities in negotiating power, identity, and transnational networks during a pivotal era. Drawing on local and European archival research, I examine how local actors, through education, language, and visual culture, challenged Eurocentric narratives and influenced Europe’s political and religious ties to the region. By centering connected and entangled histories, this talk redefines cultural diplomacy as a two-way street, with lessons for contemporary debates on migration, heritage, and soft power.