Richard Landes

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Richard A. Landes is an American historian and author, specializing in Millennialism. He currently serves as an Associate Professor in the Department of History at Boston University. Landes is the director of the Center for Millennial Studies.

1 Academic work
2 Pallywood
3 Books
4 References
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] Academic work

He was trained as a medievalist and wrote his first book on a series of forgeries that had fooled historians for centuries, even after a scholar in the 1920s had shown decisively that the texts were fiction. In addition to working on medieval peace movements and the relations between elites and commoners in 11th century France, he focuses on millennial and apocalyptic movements. In addition to courses on medieval history, he offers courses in "Communications Revolutions from Language to Cyberspace", "Europe and the Millennium," and "Honor-Shame Cultures, Middle Ages, Modern World." He is completing a book entitled Heaven on Earth: The Varieties of the Millennial Experience.

[edit] Pallywood

Landes is also notable for views on the use of film footage related to conflicts in Israel, in particular his use of the term Pallywood (Palestinian Hollywood), which is described by Ruthie Blum, writing in the Jerusalem Post, as a term coined by Landes to refer to "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." Landes himself describes Pallywood as "a term I coined... to describe staged material disguised as news." Landes cites the film of the shooting of Muhammad al-Durrah, the Gaza beach blast and Hamas's alleged exploitation of electricity shortages during the 2007–2008 Israel-Gaza conflict, as incidents of Pallywood. ^[1]

He maintains two web sites:

Second Draft depicts the perceived pro-Palestinian, anti-Israeli bias in some media reports from the Middle East.
Augean Stables includes more in-depth articles about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and related issues.

[edit] Books

Relics, Apocalypse, and the Deceits of History: Ademar of Chabannes (989-1034) (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1995)

The Peace of God: Social Violence and Religious Response in France around the Year 1000, ed. Thomas Head and Richard Landes (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992)

Naissance d'Apôtre: Les origines de la Vita prolixior de Saint Martial de Limoges au XIe siècle (Turnhout: Brepols, 1991) with K. Paupert, trans. of the Vita prolixior.