Haifa Mahabir

PhD title: "The Holy Waste Land: A Theoretical Discourse on Palestine and the Settler-Colonial State of Inceptional Exception"

This dissertation interrogates the juridical and colonial foundations of the Israeli state through the conceptual lens of what I term the inceptional exception—a permanent state of emergency inscribed at the very origin of Zionist settler-colonial sovereignty. Moving beyond conventional readings of occupation or authoritarian decline, it reframes Israel not as a state that has decayed from democratic norms but as one constituted through the routinisation of legalised violence, racialised exclusion, and bureaucratic domination. Drawing on the intellectual thought of Giorgio Agamben, Hannah Arendt, and Edward Said, the project traces how imperial logics and legacies are not merely reproduced but transformed and intensified in the colonial governance of Palestine. Bridging Postcolonial Studies, Political and Legal Theory, and the historiography of empire, the dissertation foregrounds the Palestinian condition as both a site of juridical nonpersonhood and a crucible for rethinking political hope, resistance, and the meaning of justice.

Palestine Studies, Colonial and Postcolonial Studies, Political and Legal Theory, and the historiography of empire.

Haifa has co-led EN337: Thinking Through Theory at the University of Kent, with a particular focus on critical legal theory.

Together with Dr Ryan Perry (Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies), Haifa founded and co-chaired the Research Salon—a seminar series showcasing the scholarly and creative work of postgraduate researchers and academic staff within the School of English and across the Division of Arts and Humanities. Developed during the COVID-19 period as an online adaptation of the earlier in-person PhD Research Seminar (co-founded with Dr Bashir Abu-Manneh), the Salon fostered intellectual community during remote learning and has since expanded through inter-university collaboration across the UK.

Haifa has extensive experience in inclusive, subject-based outreach and university preparation. As an Academic Outreach Mentor and Postgraduate Subject Expert with the University of Kent Academies Trust (2018–2023), she delivered seminars, workshops, and sustained mentoring to students across Southeast England. Her work focused on critical thinking, academic writing, and widening participation, with a particular emphasis on supporting underrepresented students in their transition to higher education.

She also completed a year-long postgraduate teacher training programme (2020–2021) at the University of Kent, led by Dr Ryan Perry, with a focus on pedagogical theory, seminar design, and inclusive teaching practice.

Dr Bashir Abu-Manneh

Creative Writing Fellow for the New York State Council on the Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts