President Scholarship

Supervisor: Prof. David Enoch and Prof. Hagit Benbaji

Abstract:The main question that underlies the dissertation is the following: do emotions have an epistemic role? The rationale behind the positive answer that I provide is the following. An answer to whether emotions have an epistemic role depends in part on what emotions are. Thus, we need an account of the kind of mental state that emotions are, or at the very least an account of the necessary and sufficient conditions for a mental state being an emotion. In addition, an answer to the question about emotions’  epistemic role must take into consideration that characteristics of emotions may pose limitations on their epistemic role. The five chapters of this dissertation try to do exactly that: provide an account of emotions’ indispensable epistemic role, an account that satisfies the constraints that arise from considering what emotions are. The thesis that arises from the dissertation is that emotions are sui generis mental states, essentially evaluable and felt, that conceptually represent and present affective-evaluative properties. They are the basic way we experience and think about affective-evaluative properties, and they fix the reference of the concepts of these properties. Emotions are defeasibly entitled, can be justified by evaluative evidence and defeasibly justify beliefs in virtue of being evidence of evidence. Although their epistemic role is limited in some cases, they are nonetheless epistemically indispensable.

Bio: 

I have a BA in Psychology and Philosophy from the Hebrew University, an MA in Clinical Psychology and a PhD in Philosophy.  

My dissertation is related to one of the central aspects of our daily lives and of psychotherapy - emotions. Specifically, I argue that emotions are an independent source of knowledge. For example, my fear can be an independent way for me to know that there is something dangerous in my vicinity or my shame can be a way for me coming to know that I had done something wrong. This will seem natural to many people. Psychotherapists surely think that their patients' emotions and their own emotions are a way of discovering a world of psychic meaning. However, is has proven to be quite difficult to offer an account of emotions and their epistemic role that withstands philosophical scrutiny. In my dissertation I hope to have succeed in doing so, while remaining true to the phenomenology of emotions.

Apart from my philosophical research, I am a certified clinical psychologist and conduct therapy with children, adolescents and adults. In addition, I am engaged in theoretical thinking about clinical psychology from a psychoanalytic perspective, mainly Freudian and Kleinian.
 

Publications:

R. Pat-Horenczyk, A.M. Kenan. M. Achitvu, E. Bachar. (2014). Protective Factors Based Model for Screening for Posttraumatic Distress in Adolescents. Child and Youth Care Forum, 43 (3), 339-351. DOI: 10.1007/s10566-013-9241-y.

Presidential Stipend 2016/17

Supervisor:  Dr. Jonathan Vardi 

Abstract:  During the 15th century, while Europe is swept by the Renaissance, numerous Jews of various ‎origins immigrate to Italy. Hebrew writers from Ashkenaz, Provence and Spain, alongside their ‎coreligionists of the local Italian communities, combine trends and traditions, composing a ‎literature that merges the religious and the secular, the old and the contemporary, the ‎imported and the local. ‎
My research begins with "Niv Sefataim (“Fruit of the Lips”), a collection of over 120 poems ‎written by Yosef Zark, an immigrant from Spain, and his circle of associates in northern Italy. ‎Through the network of relationships and exchanges reflected in this collection, I examine the ‎history and poetics of 15th-century Hebrew poetry in Italy.‎

Bio:  A graduate student in the department of Hebrew literature. I have studied my B.A. and M.A. in Jerusalem, first in Hebrew literature and Philosophy, later specializing in Medieval literature. I work mainly on Hebrew poetry written in Medieval and Renaissance Italy, and maintains an interest in analytic theories of literature and the philosophy of imagination.

President Stipend 2021/22

MA Alumni 2019/20

Supervisor: Prof. Elhanan Yakira and Dr. Tatiana Karachentseva

Abstract: A philosophical-systematical description of the Marburg School and its main three philosophers: Hermann Cohen, Paul Natorp and Ernst Cassirer.

Objectives: 

1. To expose the inner philosophical way of reasoning of the Marburg neokantian systems. That in order to : (a) achieve a better articulation of some key concepts of these systems which are presently still ambiguous, (b) offer new answers to some old questions, (c) situate better the school’s philosophical direction within the history of philosophy in the beginning of the 20th century.
2. To give a clearer answer to the question what is ‘Kantiansm’ and ‘Neo-Kantianism’ according to school and to emphasise and examine their concept of kantianism as a clearly defined philosophical methodology.
3. To show the complexity and problematicalness in understanding the relation between ‘subjectivity’ and ‘objectivity’ in their philosophy, and to present this as a key to articulate deep differences between the three thinkers - a difference which is deeper than what is usually attributed to them.

To reveal the above mentioned inner differences under the following categories: as differences (a) in their ontological premises and ontolgical commitment [‘Being’], (b) in defining the basic principle of objectification and scientificity [‘Prinicple’], (c) in defining what gives a unity to all directions of objectification [‘System’], (d) in defining the objective “material” from which the ways of objectification are to be extracted and how should they be extracted  [‘Method’] (e) the meaning of ‘Subject’ when it becomes a distinct object of their systematical inquiry 

Presidential Stipend 2012/13

Subject: The New Orient: German-Jewish Orientalism in Palestine/Israel

Supervisor: Prof. Yfaat Weiss and Dr. Aya Elyada

Abstract: In my PhD project, I study the history of Orientalism as an academic discipline in Palestine/Israel, and its German-Jewish roots, by focusing on the life and work of prominent German-Jewish orientalists who founded and developed the School of Oriental Studies at the Hebrew University. At the center of my work stands the transfer of orientalist knowledge, which embodied an essential transformation in the encounter with the Orient: from a scientific, textual encounter in Germany, to a living, physical encounter in Palestine/Israel. I attribute great importance to the circumstances and context of this transformation: the Aliyah/immigration of the orientalists, the transfer agents, whether out of Zionist aspirations or pragmatic considerations; and the great changes in the destination country - national Zionist consolidation and an intensifying Arab-Jewish conflict, in a place which was by and large an Arab space, in language and culture.
Therefore, I ask the following questions: how did immigration to Palestine/Israel affect the German-Jewish orientalists, both professionally and personally? What were the models that these scholars develop in order to mediate between the two ends of knowledge transfer? How were Oriental Studies in the Hebrew University shaped, when its German roots were confronted with the local population, the escalation of violence during the British Mandate period, the political and security needs of the Zionist establishment and the state of Israel, and other orientalist approaches?
This study draws from a rich corpus of archival documents from personal and institutional collections in Israel and abroad, as well as personal interviews.

Bio: I am a PhD student in the Department of History, where I also completed my BA (History & Political Science) and MA (History), both with distinction. During my studies I also participated in the Traces and Treasures of German-Jewish History project (a cooperation between the Franz Rosenzweig Minerva Research Center and DLA Marbach, Germany) - preserving, sorting and cataloging archival collections of German-Jewish orientalists in Israel. Born and raised in Jerusalem, I currently live in Givatayim. Married to Moran, father of Ahinoam. A retired amateur bass player.

Publications:

• “The Archive as a Storyteller: Refractions of German-Jewish Oriental Studies Migration in Personal Archives,” Simon-Dubnow-Institut Yearbook XVII (2018, forthcoming). 
• “Orientalist Collections at the National Library of Israel,” Geschichte der Germanistik 49/50 (2016), pp. 147-148.
• “A Man of Contention: Martin Plessner (1900–1973) and His Encounters with the Orient,” Naharaim 10.1 (September 2016), pp. 79-100.
• “'השייח': ניגודים ויזואליים ונרטיביים בדרך להבנת האוריינטליזם האמריקני בשלושה עשורי ניתוח”, סליל 10 (חורף 2016), עמ' 39-57.
• “'מַעלֶש, נסתדר': ערבית בפולקלור הפלמ”ח של שנות הארבעים,” היה היה 11 (סתיו 2015), עמ' 46-66.

President stipend 2017/18

Subject: Deauthorizing Dante: Authorship and Readership between Dante and his 14th Century Poetic Heirs

Supervisor: Dr. Gur Zak

Abstract: Dante’s poetic authority and outstanding reputation is irrefutable today, however, in his days he was regarded as an experimental poet and amateur theologian and thinker whose status and literary abilities were questionable. Special attention was given to the authoritative tactics he employed in his Divine Comedy, in which he notably places himself as the heir of the classic literary tradition and casts Virgil as his guide and mentor, whom he will eventually surpass in the completion of his poetic and authoritative quest. One of the foremost techniques for attaining authority in his Commedia is indeed his ample use of Virgil’s epic, as he openly avails himself of Aeneas’s salvific journey to the new world and bases his own voyage upon this famous connotation, while also undermining the former text, reframing it so as to accommodate his own ideologies. 
This successful authoritative technique unintentionally prompts Dante’s 14th century poetic heirs—namely, Boccaccio, Petrarch, and Chaucer—to apply his method against him, as they use Dante’s fame and acclaim in order to substantiate their own positions as poets. Just like Dante negotiated his poetic authority vis-à-vis the Latin auctores, simultaneously validating Virgil’s poetry as well as negating his legacy and the classic tradition – his successors too employ the Commedia as foil for the construction of their auctoritas, both by relying on Dante’s established reputation and at the same time undermining his poetic choices.
This intriguing dynamic is the focus of this study, examined through two specific episodes which are rewritten by all three poets so as to challenge and question Dante’s authority and authorship. 

Shachar is currently a postdoctoral fellow, pursuing research of the cross-cultural as well as intertextual relations between the Italian literary tradition of the 14th century and the Medieval English nascent culture.

Azrieli Stipend 2017/18

President Stipend 2015/16