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.

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 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 Paula Fredriksen. He lives with his wife in Jerusalem.

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

Pallywood

Since the Muhmmad Al Durrah incident in the Second Intifada, he has defended the politics of Israel apologetically in the light of what he alleges to be media manipulation by Palestinian Journalists and affiliates. Landes coined the term Pallywood (a 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." Larry Derfner in +972 Magazine has described "Pallywood" as an ethnic slur. "It not only mangles the name of an entire people, it does so in the most contemptuous context – it links the name Palestinian with the telling of lies, and not just any lies, but lies about Palestinian deaths at the hands of their conquerors." Some western media have cited evidence for the term beginning three decades ago. 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

Monographs

Edited books, collections