People_
Dr Isabelle Hesse
BA (Hons), MA (Canterbury, UK), PhD (York, UK); Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy; School Honours Coordinator
Senior Lecturer
Discipline of English and Writing
Discipline of English and Writing
Phone
+61 2 9351 6859
Address
A20 - John Woolley Building
The University of Sydney
Details
Member of Sydney Environment Institute
Websites
Isabelle Hesse is a comparative literature scholar with specific expertise in Palestine/Israel and Holocaust studies as well as postcolonial literature and theory. She has widely published in these areas and their intersections. She is also interested in the cultural, political, and historical relationships between Europe and the Middle East. Her current project examines the use of speculative fiction in settler-colonial contexts, including how speculative fiction can be used as a critical tool to examine the relationship between settler colonialism and climate change.
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- Palestine/Israel Studies, including literature and film from and about Israel and Palestine
- Jewish and Holocaust studies
- Cultural and Political Memories of the Holocaust in the UK and Germany
- Postcolonial writing and theory
- the intersections of Postcolonial, Jewish, and Palestine Studies
- Theories of world and global literatures
- Settler-Colonialism and Climate Change
- Speculative Fiction in Settler-Colonial Contexts
Current Teaching
- ENGL1013 Global Literatures in English
- ENGL2676 Climate Fictions
- ENGL3709 Global Literature and Times of Perpetual War
- ENGL4115/6103 Approaches to Global English Literatures
- JCTC3603 Representing the Holocaust
Past Teaching
- ENGL1011 Introduction to Film Studies
- ENGL1017 The Idea of the Classic
- ENGL1026 Constructing the Fictive Self
- ENGL2654 Novel Worlds
- ENGL2672 Postcolonial Modernisms/Modernities
- ENGL3697 Imagining Jerusalem
Supervision
Isabelle welcomes enquiries from students interested in working in the areas listed under 'interests' above.
Isabelle's current book project examines the ways in which speculative fiction is used to critically engage with settler-colonialism in novels written about Palestine/Israel, Australia, and South Africa.
- Modern Language Association, Member
- Novel Research Network, Member
- 2025, Senior Fellow, Higher Education Academy, UK
- 2023, Visiting Researcher, Centre for Concurrences in Colonial and Postcolonial Studies, Linnaeus University, Sweden.
- 2022, Parkes Institute Visiting Fellowship in Textual and Non-Textual Jewish heritage. University of Southampton, UK.
- 2018 Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Teaching Excellence Award
- 2018, Fellow, Higher Education Academy, UK
- 2014, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Humanities Research Centre, University of York, UK
- 2012, Fellow. DAAD Conference, University of Birmingham, UK
- 2012, Fellow. Summer Institute on the Holocaust and Jewish Civilization, Holocaust Research Centre, RHUL, UK and Holocaust Educational Foundation, USA
| Project title | Research student |
|---|---|
| Globality Transnationalism and Form in Novels of Australian Migrant Women Writers 1970-2000 | Harper BOON |
| Re-Imagining Citizenship in Contemporary Israel | Jerry LI |
| Confronting postcolonialism through whiteface: Performances of whiteness in contemporary Australia and Senegal | Charlotte OKKES |
Selected publications
Reimagining Israel and Palestine in Contemporary British and German Culture
(Edinburgh University Press, 2024)
Literary Representations of the Palestine/Israel Conflict After the Second Intifada
(Edinburgh University Press, 2022)
Publications
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Books
- Hesse, I. (2024). Reimagining Israel and Palestine in Contemporary British and German Culture. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. [More Information]
- Hesse, I. (2016). The Politics of Jewishness in Contemporary World Literature: The Holocaust, Zionism and Colonialism. London: Bloomsbury. [More Information]
Edited Books
- Curthoys, N., Hesse, I. (2022). Literary Representations of the Palestine/Israel Conflict After the Second Intifada. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. [More Information]
Book Chapters
- Curthoys, N., Hesse, I. (2022). Introduction: Literary Representations after the Second Intifada. In Ned Curthoys and Isabelle Hesse (Eds.), Literary Representations of the Palestine/Israel Conflict After the Second Intifada, (pp. 1-9). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. [More Information]
- Hesse, I. (2022). The Palestine/Israel Conflict in the Young Adult Anglophone 'Bildungsroman'. In Ned Curthoys and Isabelle Hesse (Eds.), Literary Representations of the Palestine/Israel Conflict After the Second Intifada, (pp. 184-199). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. [More Information]
- Hesse, I. (2016). German Empire. In Sangeeta Ray, Henry Schwarz (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Postcolonial Studies, (pp. 647-651). Malden: Wiley-Blackwell Publishing. [More Information]
Journals
- Hesse, I. (2023). Ambivalence, division, and critique: The collaborator in British Palestinian political thrillers. Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 60(1), 15-27. [More Information]
- Hesse, I. (2023). Embroidering Palestine: 'Tatreez', cultural resistance, and female labour in Palestinian American graphic narratives. Textual Practice. [More Information]
- Hesse, I. (2021). Counterfactual Israels: Zionism, Nation-Building, and Indigeneity in Contemporary Jewish Writing. ALIF: journal of comparative poetics, 41, 190-216. [More Information]
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Edited Journals
- Hesse, I., Lightman, S. (2021). Special Issue: Family and Conflict in Graphic Narratives. Studies in Comics, 12(1). [More Information]
- Hesse, I. (2014). Special Issue: The Parapostcolonial: Interdisciplinary Perspectives and New Approaches. Postcolonial Text, 9(4). [More Information]
Magazine / Newspaper Articles
- Hesse, I. (2023). Utopia gone wrong: identity and history intersect in Jenny Erpenbeck's haunting new novel. The Conversation. [More Information]
- Hesse, I., Curthoys, N. (2023). What can the Bildungsroman tell us about the Israel and Palestine conflict? The Conversation. [More Information]
- Hesse, I. (2022). Anti-Semitism, opportunism, and political intrigue: Olga Tokarczuk's whirlwind tour of the 18th century. The Conversation. [More Information]
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Reference Works
- Hesse, I. (2014). Sahar Khalifeh. The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 6.1.1: Israeli and Palestinian Writing and Culture. The Literary Dictionary Company Ltd. [More Information]
- Hesse, I. (2014). Shulamith Hareven. The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 6.1.1: Israeli and Palestinian Writing and Culture. The Literary Dictionary Company Ltd. [More Information]
- Hesse, I. (2013). Caryl Phillips's 'The Nature of Blood'. The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.09: Postwar and Contemporary English Writing and Culture , 1945-present. The Literary Dictionary Company Ltd. [More Information]
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Other
- Hesse, I. (2025), AI as a research and feedback assistant in essay plans and annotated bibliographies. [More Information]
- Hesse, I. (2018), Digital Writing and the English Classroom. [More Information]
- Hesse, I. (2018), Five Stories to Read about the Jewish Diaspora. [More Information]
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2025
- Hesse, I. (2025), AI as a research and feedback assistant in essay plans and annotated bibliographies. [More Information]
2024
- Hesse, I. (2024). Reimagining Israel and Palestine in Contemporary British and German Culture. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. [More Information]
2023
- Hesse, I. (2023). Ambivalence, division, and critique: The collaborator in British Palestinian political thrillers. Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 60(1), 15-27. [More Information]
- Hesse, I. (2023). Embroidering Palestine: 'Tatreez', cultural resistance, and female labour in Palestinian American graphic narratives. Textual Practice. [More Information]
- Hesse, I. (2023). Utopia gone wrong: identity and history intersect in Jenny Erpenbeck's haunting new novel. The Conversation. [More Information]
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2022
- Hesse, I. (2022). Anti-Semitism, opportunism, and political intrigue: Olga Tokarczuk's whirlwind tour of the 18th century. The Conversation. [More Information]
- Curthoys, N., Hesse, I. (2022). Introduction: Literary Representations after the Second Intifada. In Ned Curthoys and Isabelle Hesse (Eds.), Literary Representations of the Palestine/Israel Conflict After the Second Intifada, (pp. 1-9). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. [More Information]
- Curthoys, N., Hesse, I. (2022). Literary Representations of the Palestine/Israel Conflict After the Second Intifada. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. [More Information]
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2021
- Hesse, I. (2021). Counterfactual Israels: Zionism, Nation-Building, and Indigeneity in Contemporary Jewish Writing. ALIF: journal of comparative poetics, 41, 190-216. [More Information]
- Hesse, I., Lightman, S. (2021). Editorial. Studies in Comics, 12(1), 3-9. [More Information]
- Howard, J., Newell, B., Atherton, C., Hesse, I., Parr, J., Thompson, L., Sharpe, M. (2021). Freud, Nietzsche, Paglia, Fanon: our expert guide to the books of The White Lotus. The Conversation. [More Information]
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2020
- Hesse, I. (2020). Whiteness, Apartheid, and Resistance in Jewish South African Writing. Journal of Jewish Identities, 13(1), 43-61. [More Information]
2018
- Hesse, I. (2018). Competitive Memories: The Holocaust and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict in Contemporary British Culture. New Formations: a journal of culture/theory/politics, 93, 46-63. [More Information]
- Hesse, I. (2018), Digital Writing and the English Classroom. [More Information]
- Hesse, I. (2018), Five Stories to Read about the Jewish Diaspora. [More Information]
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2017
- Hesse, I. (2017). Sensory siege: dromocolonisation, slow violence, and poetic realism in the twenty-first century short story from Gaza. Journal for Cultural Research, 21(2), 190-203. [More Information]
2016
- Hesse, I. (2016). German Empire. In Sangeeta Ray, Henry Schwarz (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Postcolonial Studies, (pp. 647-651). Malden: Wiley-Blackwell Publishing. [More Information]
- Hesse, I. (2016). The Politics of Jewishness in Contemporary World Literature: The Holocaust, Zionism and Colonialism. London: Bloomsbury. [More Information]
2014
- Hesse, I. (2014). Colonizing Jewishness? Minority, Exile, and Belonging in Anita Desai's 'Baumgartner's Bombay' and Caryl Phillips's 'The Nature of Blood'. Textual Practice, 28(5), 881-899. [More Information]
- Hesse, I. (2014). From Colonised to Coloniser: Reading the Figure of the Jew in Edgar Hilsenrath's Der Nazi und der Friseur and Jurek Becker's Bronsteins Kinder. Postcolonial Text, 9(4), 1-16. [More Information]
- Hesse, I. (2014). Sahar Khalifeh. The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 6.1.1: Israeli and Palestinian Writing and Culture. The Literary Dictionary Company Ltd. [More Information]
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2013
- Hesse, I. (2013). Caryl Phillips's 'The Nature of Blood'. The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.09: Postwar and Contemporary English Writing and Culture , 1945-present. The Literary Dictionary Company Ltd. [More Information]
- Hesse, I. (2013). David Grossman. The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 6.1.1: Israeli and Palestinian Writing and Culture. The Literary Dictionary Company Ltd. [More Information]
Selected Grants
2016
- Teaching Literature and Writing in the Digital Age, Hesse I, Rooney B, Johinke R, Yahp B, Lee F, Lilley K, DVC Education/Small Educational Innovation Grant
English: Journal of the English Association, Editorial Board Member
In the media
- 08/09/2023 - The Conversation article "Anti-Semitism, opportunism, and political intrigue: Olga Tokarczuk's whirlwind tour of the 18th century" published in Ojo en Tinta (translated by Patricio Tapia): Antisemitismo, oportunismo e intriga política: el tour de Olga Tokarczuk por el siglo XVIII
- 26/01/2023 - op-ed published in ABC Online Religion & Ethics: Why do postcolonial authors draw on the Holocaust and experiences of Jewish marginalisation?
