Neuro-images of Resistance : The Neuro-Image and the Potentials for Resistance in post-2023 Palestinian Cinema
Heikkala, Heta (2026)
2026
Visuaalisen journalismin ja visuaalisen tutkimuksen maisteriohjelma - Master's Programme in Visual Journalism and Visual Studies
Informaatioteknologian ja viestinnän tiedekunta - Faculty of Information Technology and Communication Sciences
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Hyväksymispäivämäärä
2026
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-202606197769
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-202606197769
Tiivistelmä
This thesis examines how Patricia Pisters's (2012) concept of the neuro-image can help illuminate the potentials for resistance in post-2023 Palestinian cinema. The neuro-image approaches audiovisual images in contemporary digital screen culture. The images are seen as affective and networked encounters that don’t only represent reality, but directly affect the viewer's brain; perception, memory, affects, and the very being in this world.
The theoretical framework of the thesis combines Pisters's (2012) concept of neuro-image, Deleuze and Guattari's (1972; 1980) schizoanalysis, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak's (1988) postcolonial critique. Pisters's and Spivak's theories are read as mutually complementary tensions. The thesis asks: How can Pisters's concept of the neuro-image illuminate the affective and political dimensions of resistance in post-2023 Palestinian cinema, with particular attention to questions of visibility, memory, and the subaltern voice?
The primary material of the analysis part is Cherien Dabis's film All That's Left of You (2025). The comparative material consists of Kaouther Ben Hania's The Voice of Hind Rajab (2025) and Tarzan and Arab Nasser's Once Upon a Time in Gaza (2025). The material is approached through close reading and audiovisual analysis across four levels: the affective, memory and temporality, visibility, and the political and subaltern position.
The thesis argues that the three analysed films realise resistance potentials across three registers, united by a structural refusal of closure. Read through Avery Gordon's (2008) concept of haunting, this refusal is a political gesture through which experiences and political realities relating to Palestine remain open and audible, countering the tendency of news cycles and algorithms to close them off.
The theoretical contribution of the thesis is threefold: first, an expansion of the neuro-image into the auditory register. Second, the thesis argues that Pisters's (2012) and Spivak's (1988) theories operate together as mutually complementary tensions: Pisters (2012) illuminates how the neuro-image can open new affective and political possibilities, while Spivak (1988) insists that these openings always operate on the terms of colonial recognition. Third, the thesis emphasises the diagnostic character of the neuro-image: it helps to locate the film's affective, temporal, and political work, without making claims about its actual effects.
The thesis is written from the positionality of a white Finnish student. This positioning is part of the thesis's analytical material, not a background external to it.
The theoretical framework of the thesis combines Pisters's (2012) concept of neuro-image, Deleuze and Guattari's (1972; 1980) schizoanalysis, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak's (1988) postcolonial critique. Pisters's and Spivak's theories are read as mutually complementary tensions. The thesis asks: How can Pisters's concept of the neuro-image illuminate the affective and political dimensions of resistance in post-2023 Palestinian cinema, with particular attention to questions of visibility, memory, and the subaltern voice?
The primary material of the analysis part is Cherien Dabis's film All That's Left of You (2025). The comparative material consists of Kaouther Ben Hania's The Voice of Hind Rajab (2025) and Tarzan and Arab Nasser's Once Upon a Time in Gaza (2025). The material is approached through close reading and audiovisual analysis across four levels: the affective, memory and temporality, visibility, and the political and subaltern position.
The thesis argues that the three analysed films realise resistance potentials across three registers, united by a structural refusal of closure. Read through Avery Gordon's (2008) concept of haunting, this refusal is a political gesture through which experiences and political realities relating to Palestine remain open and audible, countering the tendency of news cycles and algorithms to close them off.
The theoretical contribution of the thesis is threefold: first, an expansion of the neuro-image into the auditory register. Second, the thesis argues that Pisters's (2012) and Spivak's (1988) theories operate together as mutually complementary tensions: Pisters (2012) illuminates how the neuro-image can open new affective and political possibilities, while Spivak (1988) insists that these openings always operate on the terms of colonial recognition. Third, the thesis emphasises the diagnostic character of the neuro-image: it helps to locate the film's affective, temporal, and political work, without making claims about its actual effects.
The thesis is written from the positionality of a white Finnish student. This positioning is part of the thesis's analytical material, not a background external to it.