Brief Encounters Journal

An image depicting the following text: "This piece carries a deeply personal significance. I began drafting it during prolonged power outages and with little to no internet access. I vividly remember scribbling ideas on scraps of paper and typing notes on my phone, often under the echo of shelling and amidst unimaginable circumstances. Against all odds, the paper took shape, and today [16 July 2025], it’s finally out in the world. In this article, I document my lived experience teaching university courses and leading the English Department at Al-Aqsa University in Gaza during wartime, employing methods and strategies that overcame, as much as possible, the many challenges we faced. It also tells the stories of colleagues and students who, despite destruction and isolation, chose to resist, with their voices, their words, and their will to continue learning.

An image depicting the following text, continued from the previous image, alongside a photograph of Ahmed Kamal Junina: That is why I titled the article: 'Displaced but not replaced: challenges, adaptations, and resilience of higher education in Gaza in the context of war and scholasticide.' The article offers a close look at the deliberate and ongoing destruction of Gaza’s higher education system. I wrote it with my colleagues and students in mind. These are the people who continue to teach and learn under bombardment, in classrooms reduced to rubble or scattered across displacement camps. This is for them. For all those who remind us, even in the darkest of times, that the pursuit of knowledge in Gaza endures and cannot be silenced.

Dr Junina kindly shared the following introductory statement to accompany its publication. #IntellectualResistance #EducationAsResistance #VoicesFromGaza

Displaced but not replaced: challenges, adaptations, and resilience of higher education in Gaza in the context of war and scholasticide The ongoing war on Gaza has led to the systematic destruction of schools and universities, termed scholasticide, severely disrupting higher education. Despite this, universities have shown remarkab...

We are proud to share Dr Ahmed Kamal Junina’s article, ‘Displaced but not replaced: challenges, adaptations, and resilience of higher education in Gaza in the context of war and scholasticide’, published in ‘Globalisation, Societies and Education’ (July 2025): doi.org/10.1080/1476....

Ahmed Kamal Junina

A selected catalogue of the workshops thus far can be viewed on YouTube, alongside recordings of presentations related to Dr Junina’s own research. Please visit: www.youtube.com/@ahmedkamalj....
#AcademicSolidarity

An image which collects a series of six posters from the workshop series hosted as part of RECONNECT.

Since then, they have been welcomed to an ongoing series of workshops as part of RECONNECT – an initative which strives to restore access to education for students in Gaza, founded and led by Dr Junina since March 2025.
#EducationUnderSiege

An event poster depicting Ahmed Kamal Junina, George Clutterbuck and Millie Riddell.

On 12 April 2025, CHASE-affiliated members of the editorial team, George Clutterbuck and Millie Riddell, were kindly invited to convene with Dr Junina, and current and former members of Al-Aqsa University’s English faculty and student body, to formally announce the call for contributions.

To our peers & colleagues in Gaza: thank you for sharing your knowledge with such generosity, thank you for welcoming us into your virtual classroom and for defying continued, imminent threat so that we can convene. It is our privilege to be creating this publication with you.
#FreePalestine

The deliberate devastation of educational & healthcare infrastructure, the purposeful denial of vital resources, and continued indiscriminate bombardment have not prevented our colleagues from continuing to show beyond doubt their intellectual ambitions, strength and compassion.
#WriteToResist

A photograph depicting Dr Ahmed Kamal Junina

We are honoured to have Dr Ahmed Kamal Junina, Head of the department and Assistant Professor in Applied Linguistics, join us as guest senior editor. The special issue affirms the right to education and deepens understanding of how the academic community can respond to crisis.
#EducationAsResistance

A decorative image which repeats the special issue's theme and includes a graphic of both the globe and the Palestinian flag.

To amplify the voices of students & academics in Gaza, Brief Encounters is collaborating with the English department at Al-Aqsa University to produce a special issue centred on Pedagogical Resilience, Challenges and Adaptive Strategies.
#DecolonizeAcademia

George Clutterbuck, Submissions Editor, is a PhD student at @sussexresearcher.bsky.social. Her research is about feminist approaches to the study of marginalised women’s artistry and focuses upon the work of Laura (Riding) Jackson, Eva Frankfurther and Anna Mendelssohn.

Keiran Wilson Keiran is a second-year doctoral researcher in Criminology at Birkbeck, University of London, funded by the Consortium for the Humanities and the Arts South-...

Keiran Wilson, Articles Section Editor, is a PhD student, and lecturer @birkbeckpsychology.bsky.social. He explores how carceral power dynamics manifest in UK mental health law, the space of the psychiatric ward, & queer narratives of detention under the Mental Health Act. keiranwilson.owlstown.net

Introducing Anna Titov, Articles Section Editor! For her PhD at @uniofeastanglia.bsky.social, Anna's research looks at Nietzsche’s middle writings and the development of his notion of ‘overcoming’ as stemming from his depictions of our experiences of nature, particularly our embodied experiences.

Continuing our introductions to issue 9's team...!

Chris Bates, Review Section Editor, is PhD candidate at the University of Sussex. His research considers how the political economies of wood reveal, and are revealed in, the affective, aesthetic and formal investments of the early American novel.

Continuing our introductions to the editorial team of issue 9...!

Emily Gresham-Beamer, Creative Encounters Section Editor, is a PhD candidate at @goldsmithsuol.bsky.social. Her research investigates Lidar and photogrammetry image-modelings around contested forest spaces of the Global South.

While the publication of issue 9 is underway, we wanted to introduce you to this year’s editorial team!

Millie Riddell, Senior Editor, is a PhD candidate at the Courtauld Institute of Art. Her research is about radical art practices in Aotearoa New Zealand in the 1970s.

The cover competition now OPEN!

Any artwork submitted should align with the theme of Solidarity & we welcome entires in multiple mediums including painting, printmaking, mixed media, photography & digital media.

Please send your entries to chasedtpjournal@gmail.com by midnight on May 2nd 2025.

We continue to look for a Web & Layout Officer for issue 9!

If you are a current CHASE scholar, please get in touch to express your interest via training@chase.ac.uk by February 14th.

This voluntary role lasts throughout the publication of issue 9 (until Sept 2025 approximately).

Stories of Resilience from Palestinian Universities Join us for a short film screening and a panel discussion featuring students and academics from Palestine.

Tomorrow, from 5pm-6pm GMT, Fobzu will host an event about higher education in Palestine, Survival through Education: Stories of Resilience from Palestinian Universities. Co-organised with @ucu.org.uk.

To register please visit: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/stories-of...

#solidarity #palestine

Event for scholars at CHASE institutions on 20.02.25! 📢

The Procrastinator’s Guide to Writing a Journal Article will show you how to overcome procrastination & streamline your writing process. It will take place online from 10am-1pm GMT.

To register visit: www.ticketsource.co.uk/chasedtp/t-l...

Event for scholars at CHASE institutions on February 27th! 📢

Peer Review in the Arts and Humanities is a workshop designed to demystify peer review, and will take place at Birkbeck, Bloomsbury in London from 10.30am until 4.00pm.

To register, visit the URL: www.ticketsource.co.uk/chasedtp/pee...

Submissions for Issue 9 are now closed!

Thank you to everyone who put forward a contribution 🎉 🙏 – we have been so delighted with the ideas we have received and will now turn to reviewing all the submissions. We expect to complete this process before the month is out, so watch this space! 👀

Only 2 DAYS to go!

We seek submissions that relate to this year's theme of Encounters in Solidarity.

For full details of the Call for Papers, check out the following URL: briefencounters-journal.co.uk/news/11/

Send your Abstract + Bio to chasedtpjournal@gmail.com by midnight on January 6th!

We are looking for a Web & Layout Officer for issue 9!

If you are a current CHASE scholar, please get in touch to express your interest via training@chase.ac.uk by January 24th.

This voluntary role lasts throughout the publication of issue 9 (until Aug/Sept 2025 approximately).

Take a look! 👀

Put together by Alliances of Understanding, this series of films ‘speaks to a reality of Palestine that frames Palestinian identity as bigger, richer and more human than the current devastation can admit’.

alliancesofunderstanding.com/before-and-s...

Please be reminded that we welcome submissions from research students and staff from CHASE-affiliated institutions, as well as contributions which are co-created with individuals who do not have an affiliation to CHASE. ✊

In the spirit of our theme for issue 9, today we celebrate International Human Solidarity Day.

We invite proposals from all disciplines & institutions across the consortium and its affiliates, & across all forms of solidarity.

Submission guidelines URL: briefencounters-journal.co.uk/submissions/

Online & in-person event today at 5.30pm GMT!

Hosted by Alliances of Understanding, this panel explores the parallel struggles of Palestinians and Tamils, showing how each community has faced systemic violence & erasure.

Contact Syed Haider at s.haider@uea.ac.uk to register.

CHASE-affiliated institutions include: University of Sussex; University of Kent; University of East Anglia; University of Essex; SOAS; Goldsmiths; Birkbeck and The Courtauld.

Submit your Abstracts (300 words) and Bios (200 words) to us at chasedtpjournal@gmail.com by January 6th!

To practise & promote #solidarity, we invite submissions co-authored with individuals/groups not affiliated with CHASE.

Are you interested in collaborating with current/former students or staff members at a CHASE institution to produce a contribution for this year’s issue?

A reminder that submissions are OPEN! We seek proposals across all forms of solidarity: solidarity in environmental crises; LGBTQIA+ alliances; against scholasticide; within Indigenous and anticolonial struggles, and more.

See the link below for our full CfP:
briefencounters-journal.co.uk/news/11/