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PhD honors 2013/14 | Jack, Joseph & Morton Mandel School for Advanced Studies in the Humanities

PhD honors 2013/14

Roy Amir

Dr. Roy Amir

Philosophy

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Subject: Ground-Laying as the Object's Ground: The Notion of Rationality in
Hermann Cohen's System der Philosophie

Supervisor: Prof. Elhanan Yakira, Dr. Tatiana Karachentseva

Abstract: The work analyses the notion of rationality presented in Hermann Cohen's "System der Philosophie" (1902-1912). In contrast to the customary view, I show that his rationalism is grounded in an intensional theory of conceptuality, taken in the Leibnizian sense. Such a theory comprehends the concept as an expression of the intelligibility of an individual being, an expression of its being a rational possibility, rather than a general-formal relation. The work demonstrates that a reading of Cohen's "logic of origin"  on the base of the principles of a Leibnizian intensional theory of concepts clarifies the internal logic of Cohen's arguments and provides means for evaluating the problematics of rationality placed at the core of the system. I show that Cohen's system attempts to present an intensional rationalism without the (dogmatic) presupposition of the compete rationality of the actual. In that, it represents a unique and philosophically valuable notion of rationality.  

  

I am interested in rationalism (both as a philosophical tradition and as a philosophical stance), Kant, German Idealism and Neo-Kantianism. My research so far has dealt with Cohen's system, with the notion of rationality it embodies, and with the manner in which this notion influences Cohen's ethical, cultural, theological, and political views.   

Publications:

Amir, Roy. Messianism and the Possibility of knowledge in Cohen and Benjamin, Paradigmi. Rivista di critica filosofica (2017:1), pp. 61-78. 

 

Rotenstreich Scholarship 2015/2016

Presidential Stipend 2013/2014

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ilil

Dr. Ilil Baum

The Department for Romance and Latin American Studies

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Subject: Judeo-Catalan and Jewish Multiglossia in Medieval Catalonia

Supervisor: Prof. Cyril Aslanov

Abstract: My research focuses on the (socio)linguistic aspects of the Jewish communities of Catalonia before the Expulsion of 1492. The study consists of a linguistic and philological analysis of texts and documents in Catalan written in Hebrew characters (fourteenth-fifteenth centuries). Some of these documents have not been published or edited thus far.  I also discuss the notion of “Judeo-Catalan” and aspects of language usage in a multiglossic community: when and in what context did these Jews use Catalan and Hebrew, and what was their treatment and knowledge of Arabic and Latin throughout the Middle Ages.

 

Polonsky Stipend 2013/14

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Ivri Bunis

Dr. Ivri Bunis

Hebrew Language

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Subject: The Morphosyntax of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic from the Byzantine Period

Supervisor: Steven E. Fassberg

Abstract: The focus of my PhD thesis is the morpho-syntax of the Aramaic dialect used by the Jews of Palestine in the Byzantine period, as attested in writing. Following the Mishnaic period, i.e. from the 3rd century CE onward, we witness a shift from Hebrew to Aramaic in rabbinic literature reflecting, it would seem, a drastic decline in the use of Hebrew as a living language in the area. A distinct Aramaic dialect, referred to as Jewish Palestinian- or Galilean Aramaic, begins to appear in important rabbinic works from Byzantine Palestine: The Palestinian Talmud, Bible translations and Aggadic Midrash such as Genesis Rabbah. Morpho-syntax relates to the dependence of morphological forms on syntactic structure. The thesis will attempt to describe and explain the choice of morphological forms of categories such as the noun, verb, pronoun among others in connection with the syntactic structures they appear in. Understanding this aspect of linguistic function is essential to the general understanding of the language and has a bearing upon many areas. It will contribute to better understanding the texts themselves, and to characterizing texts of uncertain provenance, and will also aid in understanding linguistic development in Mishnaic Hebrew, contemporary Aramaic dialects and even the spoken Arabic dialects that replaced Aramaic.

 

Presidential Stipend 2013/14

Rotenstreich 2015/16

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Adi Burtman

Adi Burtman

Musicology

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Subject: The Emotional Subject as Portrayed in Nineteenth-Century Italian Tragic Opera: The Psychosocial Map of Jealousy

Supervisor: Prof. Ruth HaCohen

Abstract: In my research I wish to examine the way in which nineteenth century Italian opera reflects and mediates the dynamic emotional space of Italian subjects and society, and in particular the conflicted emotional space of jealousy and its surroundings.

 

Presidential Stipend 2013/14

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Naama  Dar Amir

Naama Dar Amir

Department of History

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Subject: The London Pleasure Fairs in the first half of the Nineteenth Century

Supervisor: Professor Dror Wahrman and Professor Moshe Sluhovsky

Abstract: My PhD thesis examines the role of the London Pleasure Fairs in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century. This was an especially important period in their long history that marked both new developments in the nature of the Fairs as well as the disappearance of most of the long established Fairs.

My thesis will suggest the Fairs were integral to the formation of the city's life and culture and the practices created and established within them held much bigger social and cultural impact than was assumed by scholars so far. Indeed I argue that understanding the changing nature of the Fairs, their decline and the rise of new cultural institutions that took on some of their roles and practices, is crucial to understanding the cultural, political and social changes in the period.  

 Presidential Stipend 2013/14

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Hadar Feldman Samet

Dr. Hadar Feldman Samet

Department of Jewish Thought

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Subject: The Hymns of the Sabbatean "Ma'aminim" in their Ottoman Context

Supervisor: Dr. Pawel Maciejko

Abstract: My work is dedicated  to the research of the lives and texts of the Sabbatean "Ma'aminim", also known as " Dönme ", who converted to Islam in the footsteps of their messiah Sabbatai Sevi. The Ma'aminim lived in Ottoman Salonika, starting at the late 17th century, and until 1924, when they were forcibly repatriated in Istanbul.

My research deals with one of the few authentic inner sources that are available: a codex of approximately a thousand mystical, messianic, liturgical poems, dating to the 18th and 19th centuries, written in Ladino, Hebrew, Aramaic and Ottoman- Turkish. These poems appear in five manuscripts, four are located in Ben Zvi institute and the fifth at Harvard University library archives. To this day only a small part of the poems were examined and published. My research aims to progress current achievements by providing an encompassing and systematic analysis of the entire codex. I wish to discern the unique identity of the Ma'aminim community and their relationship to their surroundings by examining the poems in multiple aspects: Linguistic, formative, musical, ritualistic and philosophical. Through this work I wish to contribute to the understanding of the inner world of the Ma'aminim, as well as exploring their syncretic religion and the development of later Sabbateanism. Moreover, studying the poetry of the Ma'aminim can provide a case study for other syncretic phenomena and a model for exploring inter-cultural relations taking place between a majority and a minority in general, and in European and Ottoman cultures of the early modern era, in particular. 

 

Presidential Stipend 2013/14

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Sivan Goren Arzony

Dr. Sivan Goren Arzony

Department of Comparative Religion

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Subject: Eighteen Poets and a Half: A Literary Renaissance in Medieval Kerala

Supervisor: Prof. David Shulman

 

Presidential Stipend 2012/13

Polonsky Stipend 2013/14

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Anna Gutgarts

Dr. Anna Gutgarts

Department of History 

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Subject: Jerusalem in the 12th century: Systematic Analysis of a Developing Urban Landscape – dissertation summary

Supervisor: Professor Ronnie Ellenblum & Professor Iris Shagrir

Abstract: This dissertation aims to reconstruct different facets in the formation of the cityscape of Frankish Jerusalem, particularly during the first six decades of the twelfth century following its conquest by the Crusaders. The analysis is based on a spatially and chronologically organized database encompassing the widest possible array of documents from the examined period. This database allows tracing various patterns concerning different aspects in the urban development of Jerusalem that could not have been detected otherwise. The study analyzes the patterns of economic activity of the city’s major institutions, demonstrating their impact on the formation of urban space. This impact can be traced both in their involvement in urban endeavors as well as in their architectural expansion during the examined period. Other objectives include an analysis of urban social constructs, as well as an examination of Jerusalem in its wider socio-economic context, through its relationship with its rural hinterland.

Rotenstreich Stipend 2013/14 

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Alina  Meltzer

Alina Meltzer

Theatre

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Subject: The Stage as World:  Cosmology and Metatheatre in Shakespeare's Plays and their Interpretations on Stage and Screen

Supervisor: Prof. Tzachi Zamir, Jeanette Malkin PhD.

Abstract: My research examines Shakespearean meta-theatre as a performative embodiment of pre-modern cosmology and traces its interpretations and adaptations according to changing paradigms.

Plays within plays and various role-playing-within-roles are common meta-theatrical devices in Renaissance drama, prevalent especially in the Shakespearean theatre. These devices characterise the fictional world, as well as the characters, as multilayered structures that invoke a variety of internal hierarchies and analogies. These complex and recursive dramatic structures are examined in this research as a theatrical recreation of pre-modern cosmology and of man as micro-cosmos. My research aims to illuminate new perspectives in the application of meta-theatre on the Shakespearean stage and its subversive role in representing a declining cosmology and the tensions that arose from it both in the social and the personal realms.

In late adaptations of Shakespearean plays, one can notice considerable changes in the application of the meta-theatrical devices:  their structure is usually elusive and its inner dynamic tends to be chaotic, thus creating different structural models that invoke new modes of experience and interpretation. A study of several Shakespearean adaptations on stage and screen will reveal different trends in the interpretation of Shakespearean meta-theatre, for both media, in accordance with changing world vies, social structures and identity theory. 

Presidential Stipend 2013/14

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Barak  Monnickendam-Givon

Barak Monnickendam-Givon

Archaeology

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Subject: South-Phonecia and its surroundings in the Persian, Hellenistic and Roman periods: reflections of social, economic and cultural changes in the material culture

Supervisor: Prof. Ilan Sharon

Abstract: Cooking vessels occupy an important place in the archaeological research. The manufacturing of cooking pots is a result of a careful production process; modification of this production process can be indicative of social and behavioral changes. During the Persian, Hellenistic and Roman periods (ca. 500BCE through ca. 250CE), a gradual revolution occurred in cooking vessels production at Phoenicia, in the southern Levantine coast, that made the Phoenician kitchen – and dinner table – more diverse. I wish to consider how and why production of cooking vessels changed in this period. I will do so by examining Phoenician workshop production to determine what types of vessels local potters developed and what they borrowed. I am interested in determining the extent to which local workshops used potting techniques, originating from other areas around the eastern Mediterranean, shaping new assemblage of cooking vessels. This will allow to move from archaeological evidence – such as the manufacture of new types of cooking vessels – to the interpretation of behaviors.

Rotenstreich Stipend 2013/14

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Ilia Mozias

Ilia Mozias

East Asian Studies

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Subject: "confucian" values and worldview of literati and development of the inner alchemy in the second half of the 16th century. 

Supervisor: Prof. Yuri Pines

Abstract:

Polonsky Stipend 2013/14

Polonsky Stipend 2013/14

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Danny November

Dr. Danny November

The History and Philosophy of Science Program

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Subject: Philosophical implications of the probability space

Supervisor: Prof. Orly Shenker

Abstract: In my research I analyze the main philosophical implications of the probability space. This mathematical structure is the core part of Kolmogorov's theory and is the dominant structure being used (sometimes implicitly) when calculating probabilities. Hence, it can said that the probability space is applicatively accepted by almost all the different interpretations of probability theory as an appropriate mathematical formalism of the notions: 'probability' and 'event'. However, accepting this formalism has ontological consequences on the possible interpretations which should be taken into consideration. Besides analyzing these consequences, I will also attempt to show how an analysis of the probability space structure helps to clarify major issues in philosophy of probability such as the Indifference Principle and the Reference Class Problem.

Presidential Stipend 2013/14

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Ofer Peres

Ofer Peres

Comparative Religion

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Subject: Urvaśī and Purūravas: A cultural Biography of a Traditional Indian Narrative

Supervisor: Prof. David Shulman

Abstract: Among the ancient narratives of the Indian tradition, the famous legend of human king Purūravas and the celestial nymph Urvaśī stands out as one of the very few that have been repeatedly re-told and re-worked from Vedic times to this day, for over three thousand years, both in Sanskrit, the language of the premodern South Asian “cosmopolis”, and in the various Indian vernaculars. The first section of my dissertation provides a holistic interpretation for the narrative’s known Sanskrit versions, while examining the transformations in orthodox “brahmanic” world view expressed by them. The second section presents on the Purūravas narratives in the Tamil language, all of which unknown to modern scholarship. Through a comparative reading of the Tamil texts in relation to the Sanskrit versions of the narrative, my research addresses the question of how traditional narratives cross socio-lingual borders, and attempts to deduce the characteristics of narrative transformation processes in the Indian subcontinent.

Presidential Stipend 2013/14             

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Lotem Pinchover

Dr. Lotem Pinchover

Department of Art History

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Subject: The Presence of Jerusalem in Medieval Saxon Convents: Art and Cult

Supervisors: Dr. Galit Noga-Banai (Hebrew University), Prof. Hedwig Röckelein (University of Göttingen.

Abstract: My doctoral research focused on the reference to the holy place in Jerusalem: the stations along the Via Dolorosa (The Stations of the Cross), the Holy Sepulchre Church and Christ’s Tomb. These representations were common especially in convents of northern Germany and were repeated in a variety of media: architecture, sculpture, reliefs, illustrations and texts. In the PhD the phenomenon was examined and reasons were offered for the popularity and centrality of Jerusalem representations in the art and cult of the medieval nuns. The PhD was approved in June 2020.

Publications:

  • “The Holy Sepulchres of Maria-Medingen,” in preparation  
  • “Die Heiligen Stätten des Bickenklosters, Villingen, im Kontext,” Geschichts- und Heimatvereins Villingen 45 (2021), in preparation  
  • “The Chapel of the Holy Sepulchre in Medieval Saxony: Between Cloistered Community and Lay Parish,” forthcoming 2021
  • “A Tale of Three Cities: Between Jerusalem and Gerusalemme – Gernrode of (St.) Scholastica,” 21: Inquiries into Art, History, and the Visual  –Beiträge zur Kunstgeschichte und visuellen Kultur 1 (2020), https://doi.org/10.11588/xxi.2020.1.73141 
  • Devotional ‘Cross-Roads’: Practicing Love of God in Medieval Jerusalem, Gaul and Saxony, co-ed. with Hedwig Röckelein and Galit Noga-Banai, Göttingen: Göttingen University Press, 2019
  • “Re-living Resurrection in Medieval Saxony: The Development of New Imagery of the Resurrected Christ,” in Devotional ‘Cross-Roads’: Practicing Love of God in Medieval Jerusalem, Gaul and Saxony, ed. by Hedwig Röckelein, Galit Noga-Banai and Lotem Pinchover, Göttingen: Göttingen University Press, 2019, pp. 211–247
  • “Christus und seine Verehrung im Kloster,” in Schatzhüterin. 200 Jahre Klosterkammer Hannover, ed. by Katja Lembke and Jens Reiche, Dresden: Sandstein, 2018, pp. 98–109
  • “The via crucis in Wienhausen: Visual Witnesses,” in Jerusalem Elsewhere: The German Recensions. Proceedings of the Minerva-Gentner Mobile Symposium, October 2011, ed. by Bianca Kühnel and Pnina Arad, Jerusalem: Spectrum, 2014, pp. 91–98 
  • Tradition and Innovation in the Former Cathedral of Gurk, Jerusalem: The Centre for Austrian Studies, 2013
  • “The Gurker Lenten-Veil as a Product of its Immediate Surrounding,” in From Collective Memories to Intercultural Exchanges, ed. by Marija Wakounig, Münster: LIT, 2012, pp. 85–116
  • “Illustrated Evening Skies: A Comparison between Children’s Book Illustrations by Chaim Hausmann and David Polonsky (Hebrew),” Ha-Pinkas: Online Magazine for Children’s Literature and Culture, 09/03/2011, http://ha-pinkas.co.il/?p=3911 

 

Azrieli Fellows Stipend 2016/17

Presidential Stipend 2013/14

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Guy Ron-Gilboa

Dr. Guy Ron-Gilboa

Department of Arabic Language and Literature.

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Subject: representations of marvels (ʿaǧāʾib) in Adab, Geography and Travel Writing of the third–fourth/ninth–tenth centuries

Supervisors: Prof. Meir M. Bar-Asher and Prof. Sara Sviri

Abstract: representations of marvels (ʿaǧāʾib) in Adab, Geography and Travel Writing of the third–fourth/ninth–tenth centuries, in order to explore the different ways in which ʿAbbāsid authors utilized, fashioned, and criticized the concept of Marvel (ʿaǧab).

Rothschild Stipend 2013/14

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Marit Ronen

Dr. Marit Ronen

General History

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Subject: Attitudes towards disability in Anglosaxon England - an examination of the cultural and social attitudes towards the disabled, and the expression of disability in daily life of disabled people

Supervisor: Prof. Esther Cohen

Abstract: What were Anglo-Saxon perceptions of impairment and disability, and how did they effect the lived realities of impaired people? In my dissertation I examine questions of inclusion and exclusion, agency and personhood, lived realities, and cultural constructions of impairment in various spheres - personal, social, religious, and political - in order to better understand Anglo-Saxon views on impairment and disability. I show that common attitudes were inclusive and maintained the personhood, agency, and participation of impaired people in society, alongside positive cultural representations which caused, and resulted from, those inclusive attitudes.

 

Polonsky Stipend 2013/14

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Katharina  Streit

Dr. Katharina Streit

Institute of Archaeology

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Subject: Between Collapse and Consolidation – The southern Levant at the Transition from the Middle to the Late Bronze Age 

Supervisor:

Abstract: This project deals with the transitional period between the end of the Middle Bronze Age (MBIIC) and the early Late Bronze Age (LBI), ca. 1600-1400 BC in the southern Levant (modern Israel, the Palestine Territories and the Jordan Valley). This period witnessed first the destruction of major fortified cities (its cause remain heavily debated), and the subsequent consolidation of urban life at the beginning of the Late Bronze Age as well as the increasing Egyptian dominance. The aim of this project is to gain a more accurate and nuanced view of this transition, and to understand it in the wider context of the eastern Mediterranean, providing a synthesis of absolute chronology, material culture and the relation to the political history.

Presidential Stipend 2013/14

The Martin Buber Society of Fellows

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Ido  Wachtel

Dr. Ido Wachtel

Archaeology

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Subject: The Upper Galilee in the Bronze and Iron Ages: Patterns of Settlement , Economy and Society.   

Supervisor: Prof. Ilan Sharon and Prof. Gideon Shelach

Abstract: The research reexamines the settlement history of the Upper Galilee during the Bronze and Iron ages (third to early first millennium B.C.E.) in light of archaeological surveys. The survey identifies early remnants and enables us to classify the changes in the settlement patterns over time and space. The research examines (per each historical epoch) where, in which form and to what extent people settled within the Upper Galilee, as well as what can be deduced from the location, character and interrelation of the various settlements with regards to early demography, society and economy. Besides the renewed discussion of the local history, I examine in my research a new method of archaeological survey, whose aim is to obtain a higher level of data precision in comparison with past methods, thereby resulting in a more accurate historical picture than that which exists today in scholarly research.

Publications:

 

1.    Bloch, G., Francoy, T. M., Wachtel, I., Panitz-Cohen, N., Fuchs, S. and Mazar, A. (2010), "Industrial apiculture in the Jordan valley during Biblical times with Anatolian honeybees". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 107 (25): 11240-11245.

2.    Mazar A. and Wachtel I. (2015), The Persian /Early Hellenistic Fortress at Hurvat Eres, Israel Exploration Journal 65(2): 214-244.

3.    Mingyu, T., Shelach, G., Marder, O. and Wachtel, I. (2014), "Archaeological Investigating Report on Fuxin District Liaoning (2012—2013)". Beifang Wenwu (3): 3-10 (Chinese with English abstract).

4.    Shelach, G., Marder, O., Mingyu, T., Goldsmith, Y., Wachtel, I., Ovadia, A. and Wan Xiongfei (2016), "Human Adaptation and Socio-Economic Change in Northeast China: Results of The Fuxin Regional Survey". Journal of Field Archaeology 41(4): 467-485.

5.    Wachtel, I. (2014), The Mystery of 'Gal Yithro': Monumental Structure in The Upper Galilee. Qadmoniot 147: 16-18 (In Hebrew).

6. Wachtel, I. (2016), La Galilea, non sempre una zona di confine, LIMES 10\15: 332-342.

7. Wachtel, I. (forthcoming), Monumentality in Early Urbanism: Early Bronze Age north Levantine monument in context. Journal of Asian Archaeology.

8.    Wachtel I. (forthcoming), "The Architecture and Stratigraphy of Area S (Lower City)" in Zuckeman S., Wachtel, I. and Bechar, S. (eds), The Rise and Decline of a Canaanite Kingdom: A view from the Lower City of Hazor. Qedem Reports, Jerusalem.

9. Wachtel, I., Zidon, R. Garti, S. and Shelach, G. (forthcoming), Predicting modeling for archeological sites location: compering logistic regression and MaxEnt in north Israel and North-East China.

10.    Wachtel, I. Sabar, R. and Davidovich, U. (forthcoming), Tel Gush Halav during the Bronze and Iron Ages, in Stern, E.,  Ben-Tor, A. and Magness J. (eds.), Eretz Israel, Volume33, (L. Stager Volume, in Hebrew).

11.    Wachtel I. and Sugimoto D. T. (2016), "Tel En Gev, Area H: Architecture and Stratigraphy", in Sugimoto D. T. and Kansha H. (eds.), Tel ‘En Gev: An Interim Report on the 2009-2011 Seasons of Archaeological Excavations, Tokyo: Keio Archaeological Expeditions to the Western Asia, pp.53-96 (Japanese, English version forthcoming). 

 

 

Presidential Stipend 2013/14

Rotenstreich Stipend 2014/15

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