President Scholarship

Supervisor: Prof. Edwin Seroussi, Prof. Galit Hasan-Rokem

Abstract: The aim of the present study is to provide a general frame of reference for understanding basic characteristics of the Yiddish folksong. The documented song-corpus is examined from three points of view, dictated by the quality of the existing documentation, by the present state of the Yiddish folksongs' tradition, and by the state of research: typological, historical and the inner-cultural perspective.

Presidential Stipend 2012/13

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

Supervisor: Prof. Anat Maril

Abstract: We propose a mechanism suggested to explain major semantic-based symptoms often observed in schizophrenia patients: hyper abstraction and over concreteness. We will introduce a mathematical model of the semantic space and using it, we will try to demonstrate and support our hypotheses regarding the relationship between stress – a major precursor of schizophrenia – and the number and sharpness of attributes encoded when considering objects and the perceived similarity between them, a cognitive process that is at the heart of abstraction. We are planning to conduct experiments to empirically test the model’s assumptions and main hypotheses, using both behavioral and brain imaging measures. We hope to gain important insight into the semantic-related symptoms of schizophrenia by testing the following main idea: elevated stress leads to a reduction in the number of attributes considered when processing objects, which in turn influences perceived similarity between objects (and hence the basic process of abstraction).

Bio: My name is Yinon Nachshon, married to Yael and father to Nevo and Amir. I am a PhD student in Dr. Anat Maril's neurocognitive lab in cognitive science department. I am a graduate of the Technion’s medicine faculty (MD) and math faculty (BSc in mathematics). I am interested in similarity and dimensionality in the semantic space, mathematical modeling of the semantic space and the representation of this space in the brain, and in the connection between the dimensionality of the semantic space and Schizophrenia.

Presidential Stipend 2016/17

Subject:  The unity of memory in neuroscience

Supervisor: Arnon Levy, Oron Shagrir

Abstract:  My PhD project centers on questions concerning the unity of memory as a scientific category in neurobiology.

Bio:  I specialize in philosophy of neuroscience and memory.

Presidential Scholarship 2017/18

Subject: The Development of the Shi'a from an Arabic Phenomenon into a Persian-Iranian Phenomenon

Supervisor: Prof. Meir M. Bar-Asher and Dr. Michael Ebstein

Abstract: My research aims at studying the development of the Shi'ite sect , from an original Arabic phenomenon into a clearly Persian-Iranian one. Therefore, I seek to analyze Shi'ite compositions in Arabic and Persian which originated from the Shi'ite centers in Iran, starting from the 9th-10th centuries and ending in the 13th century. Such a study, I hope, would contribute greatly to disperse some of the vagueness surrounding the doctrinal and political development of the Shi'a, as to locating the roots of contemporary Shi'ite-Iranian trends.

Bio: I am a doctoral student in the department of Arabic Language and Literature. I completed my BA studies in the department of Arabic Language and Literature, and in the Department of Islamic and Middle-Eastern Studies, as well as a Teacher's Training diploma in the Arabic language. Among my fields of study are the Shi'ite sect in Islam, Islamic mysticism and Iranian-Persian studies. My MA dissertation studied the concept of 'Allah's Greatest Name', which reverberates through the Jewish concept of 'Shem Hameforash', in different Islamic groups.

MA Honors Program 2015/16

Presidential stipend 2017/18

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

Supervisor: Prof. Hillel Cohen, Prof. Israel Gershoni 

Abstract: In his research Osheroff examines how the concept of Jewish national minority rights—in Palestine and in the region as a whole—was debated and discussed in the Palestinian and pan-Arab sphere from after the First World War until 1967. Osheroff focuses on the different plans devised by Arab intellectuals and leaders to solve the "Palestine problem" and the "Jewish question" within the framework of non-statist or quasi-statist agendas such as cantonization, federalization of Palestine, or different conceptualizations of autonomy for the Jewish minority in the Middle East.

Short Bio: Eli Osheroff is a PhD candidate in the department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at The Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Rotenstreich Stipend 2017/18

Presidential Stipend 2015/16