Richard Landes

Richard Allen Landes (born 1949) is an American historian and author who specializes in medieval millennial thinking. Until 2015 he taught at Boston University, and then began working at Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel. Landes is also known for coining in part and popularizing Pallywood, a term used to accuse Palestinians of staging scenes of suffering and violence for the media.

Biography

Landes is the son of Harvard professor of economics and history David Landes. His early publications were concerned with hagiography: his first published monograph was a translation of the vita of Saint Martial; his second was on the scribe and forger Adémar de Chabannes. Until 2015, he was a professor in the Department of History at Boston University, and the director of Boston University's Center for Millennial Studies. Since 2015, he has been a Senior Fellow at the Center for International Communication at Bar-Ilan University, in Ramat Gan, Israel.

Landes was formerly married to historian of early Christianity Paula Fredriksen. He lives with his wife in Jerusalem. Landes's daughter, Aliza Landes, founded the military forces of Israel digital media initiative.

Academic work

Landes specializes in millennial thinking in the Middle Ages, particularly around the year 1000. In 2000, Landes published what was said to be the first encyclopedia on the topic of millennial movements in Europe, the Encyclopedia of Millennialism and Millennial Movements. Landes also published "Celebrating Orientalism" wherein he argues that the Palestinian critic Edward Said and Arabs in general do not like to be orientalized because of honour-shame culture.^{[better source needed]}

In "Orientalism, a Thousand and One Times" and "Warientalism, or the Carrier of Firewood", Landes's discourse is labelled Warientalist, a concept that refers to a discourse defined by power and sentiment rather than knowledge.

Pallywood

Landes coined the term Pallywood (a derogatory portmanteau for "Palestinian Hollywood"), described by Ruthie Blum as referring to alleged "productions staged by the Palestinians, in front of (and often with cooperation from) Western camera crews, for the purpose of promoting anti-Israel propaganda by disguising it as news."

From a cultural view, Landes said that the persistence of the Arab–Israeli conflict is due not to injustice or partiality, but to an honor-shame culture in both the Arab and Palestinian cultures.

Books

References