Perfect Victims: And the Politics of Appeal

Examine El-Kurd’s use of irreverence and humor as a rhetorical strategy. What role does each play in the text?

Discuss the book’s treatment of fragmentation—geographic, political, and emotional—as both a colonial tool and a lived condition. How does El-Kurd portray the effects of fragmentation on Palestinian identity, solidarity, and/or resistance?

El-Kurd criticizes his experiences as a child interviewee in the documentary My Neighbourhood (2013). Watch the documentary and analyze it using El-Kurd’s arguments regarding media narratives about Palestine in Perfect Victims. What are the strengths and limitations of El-Kurd’s arguments about representation in such media?

In what ways does Perfect Victims function as both memoir and political manifesto? How does the author use or subvert some of the tropes and techniques associated with each?

Explore the motif of land, ruins, and return in the book. How does Ell-Kurd use physical geography—rubble, checkpoints, olive trees, demolished homes—to illustrate the Palestinian experience?

El-Kurd regards the current situation in Palestine as a form of occupation and colonialism. How does Perfect Victims situate Palestine within a wider discourse about colonialism? How do his views and arguments compare with those of other post-colonial thinkers and writers?

El-Kurd acknowledges that the dynamics between Palestinians living in Palestine and the Palestinian diaspora are complex. How does he depict the nature of this relationship? How do these issues relate to the book’s thematic explorations of agency and narrative?

Compare and contrast Perfect Victims with one of the works of another Palestinian writer, such as Ghassan Kanafani. What key themes and ideas do the two works share? How are they different or similar in their depiction of the Palestinian experience?