PhD honors 2017/18

Research subject: Isaiah 24-27 and its Reception in Second Temple literature 

Supervisor: Prof. Michael Segal, Dr. Ronnie Goldstein

Abstract: The study seeks to trace the textual expressions of the unit of prophecies called "The Apocalypse of Isaiah", chapters 24-27, and its development in Second Temple literature.

Bio: Avigail Aravna is a graduate of the Department of Bible at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and will be a doctoral student at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, under the President's Fellowship and a colleague at the Mandel School of Advanced Studies in the Humanities. Her research deals with biblical and external apocalyptic literature during the Second Temple period.

Publications: 

“Sending Subtle Threads of Influence into the Past: A Reexamination of the Relationship between Isaiah 24:6 and Jeremiah 23:10” in:The History of Isaiah: The Making of the Book and its Presentation of the Past (FAT). Edited by T. Hibbard and J. Stromberg. Mohr Siebeck. (forthcoming 2021)
 

Presidential Stipend 2017/18

Research subject: Posthuman Intimacy: Birds in the Discourse of Love of D. H. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf, and Ford Madox Ford

Supervisor: Dr. Ruben Borg

Abstract: In my doctoral dissertation I look at how early 20th-century British writers employ bird imagery to define love. Using three points of focus - bird song, bird movement, and nesting - I examine how D. H. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf, and Ford Madox Ford renounce romantic conventions in favor of a "nonhuman love" inspired by bird courtship rituals and behaviors. By working at the intersection of literary modernism, critical animal studies, ornithology, and philosophies of love, I hope to gain a fresh perspective on these canonical writers, which feeds into contemporary discourse both on the posthuman and on the dissolution of the Victorian courtship plot in modernist fiction.     

President Stipend 2017/18

Research subject: "Keep the Commandments": the construction of "the Commandments" and their role in forming social identity in Christianity and Judaism in late antiquity.

Supervisor: Prof. Brouria Bitton-Ashkelony

Abstract: In my dissertation I intend to examine the ways in which the discourse on the Commandments ("mitzvot") functions as a tool in the attempt to reshape religious communities in the Jewish-Christian space of late antiquity. During this period, different communities continue to insist on keeping and practicing in one form or another the "Commandments", but often without a clear definition of the meaning and scope of this term. At the same time, the concept of the "Commandments", serves as a polemical tool in both Christian and Jewish texts, but even there it is difficult to find a clear and unequivocal definition. In my dissertation I will seek to trace the ways in which this category is used to reconstruct the religious discourse and practice in late antiquity.

Bio: I hold a M.A in Comparative Religion (summa cum laude) and a B.A in Law and Comparative Religion (magna cum laude) from the Hebrew University. My thesis, entitled "But I am Prayer: Voice, Body and the Anthropology of the Praying Self in Rabbinic and Syriac-Christian Literature", was written under the supervision of Prof. Brouria Bitton-Ashkelony. For this work I received the Polonsky Prize for Creativity and Originality in the humanistic disciplines (2017). In addition, I am a fellow in the doctoral program on human rights and Judaism at the Israel Democracy Institute.

Azrieli Fellows Scholarship 2019/20

President Stipend 2017/18

MA Honors Program 2014/15

Subject: How mathematical astronomy was developed in Assyrya and Babylone

Supervisor: Prof. Wayne Horowitz

Abstract: The astral bodies were of central interest throughout the entire Mesopotamian civilization history. We found tablets of Persian and Seleucid periods with numbers and procedures that allow us an insight into their purely mathematical theory of astronomical phenomena. I try to understand how a mathematical theory of the moon’s behavior was conceived and developed in the first millennium B.C, why they found mathematisation appropriate for better understanding it, and what principals led to this scientific achievement.

Bio: I am an Assyriology PhD candidate, beginning my third year. The topic of my research is trying to understand how mathematical astronomy was developed in Assyrya and Babylone.

Presidential Stipend 2017/18

Subject: Social History of the Western Galilee 1936-76

Supervisors: Prof. Hillel Cohen-Bar and Prof. Liat Kozma

Abstract: My doctorate thesis will focus on the history of inter-communal relations between the varied groups that lived in the western galilee during the British mandate and in the decades that followed. For the first time, this project will put the western galilee on central stage relying on multiple and diverse academic fields and using primary resources and methodology that will bring forth the voices of the different communities that lived in the area.

Bio: I completed my BA in Middle Eastern studies in the Hebrew University and then proceeded to an Mphil in Middle Eastern studies at Oxford University, St. Antony's college. My MA thesis dealt with the history of sectarianism in Israel/Palestine through a work of micro history of an Arab village in the Galilee. My doctorate thesis will focus on the history of inter-communal relations between the varied groups that lived in the western galilee during the British mandate and in the decades that followed. For the first time, this project will put the western galilee on central stage relying on multiple and diverse academic fields and using primary resources and methodology that will bring forth the voices of the different communities that lived in the area.

Presidential stipend 2017/18

Supervisor: Prof. Naama Goren-Inbar

Abstract: Within the framework of my PhD thesis I wish to test and analyze the morpho-technological variability in the biface tools assemblage from the Lower Paleolithic site of Gesher Bneot-Ya‘aqov. This site is exceptional in the Levant with respect to both the wealth and variety of finds and the cultural tradition reflected in the production of stone tools. Furthermore, the stone tool assemblage in general, and specifically the bifacial component, exhibit a unique similarity to bifacial tool assemblages form Africa. Thus, with respect to the dating of the site, it is interpreted as representing one of the earliest waves of hominin migration out of Africa.

The bifacial tool assemblage from the site has been typo-technologically analyzed using traditional attribute analysis within the framework of the forthcoming fourth volume of the excavation report. The morphological aspect of the tools has been analyzed using traditional morphological methodologies for biface shape analysis which are based on a small number of metrical indices and qualitative observations. This analysis indicated high morphological homogeneity along the occupational sequence at the site, but due to its relatively low resolution had difficulties in identifying finer morphological trends and patterns.

The renewed analysis within the framework of the current study will apply 3 dimensional digital models of the artifacts, alongside multivariate statistical methods. These provide high-resolution quantitative comparisons which allow the identification of archaeologically significant morphological trends and patterns. Furthermore, the application of computerized spatial tools will allow to correlate morphological patterns to spatial and chronological aspects at the site. Additionally, a comparison of the results to those received from the analyses of additional sites from the Levant and Africa will permit to sharpen the similarities and differences between different cultural traditions at an inter-regional scale. Finally, the integration of experimental results could allow to interpret the observed morpho-technological variability as stemming from cognitive, social and cultural aspects of Middle Pleistocene hominins.

Publications:

Books: 
Goren-Inbar, N., Aplerson-Afil, N., Sharon, G., Herzlinger, G. 2018. The Acheulian site of Gesher Benot Ya'aqov volume IV: The lithic assemblages. Springer: Dordrecht. 

Articles:
Herzlinger, G., Goren-Inbar, N. UNDER REVIEW. Do a few tools necessarily mean a few people? A techno-morphological approach to the question of group size at Gesher Benot Ya‘aqov, Israel. Journal of Human Evolution,

Herzlinger, G., Wynn, T., Goren-Inbar, N. 2107. Expert cognition in the production sequence of Acheulian cleavers at Gesher Benot Ya'aqov, Israel: A lithic and cognitive analysis. Plos One, 12(11): e0188337

Zaidner, Y., Porat, N., Zilberman, E., Herzlinger, G., Almogi-Labin, A., Roskin, J. 2017. Geo-chronological Context of the Open-air Acheulian Site at Nahal Hesi, Israel. Quaternary International, 464(A): 18-31.

Herzlinger, G., Goren-Inbar, N., Grosman, L. 2017. A New Method for 3D Geometric Morphometric Shape Analysis: The Case Study of Handaxe Knapping Skill. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 14: 163-173. 

Goren-Inbar, N., Aplerson-Afil, N., Sharon, G., Herzlinger, G. 2015. A New Type of Anvil in the Acheulian of Gesher Benot Ya’aqov, Isarel. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 370(1682): 20140353.

Herzlinger, G., Pinsky, S., Goren-Inbar, N. 2015. A Note on Handaxe Knapping Products and their Breakage Taphonomy: an Experimental View. Journal of Lithic Studies, 2(1): 65-82.

Herzlinger, G., Grosman, L., Goren-Inbar, N. 2013. The PPNA Quarry of Kaizer Hill, Modiin, Israel - The Waste Piles. in Stone Tools in Transition: From Hunter-Gatherer to Farming Societies in the Near East. Borrell, F., Inbánez, J.J., Molist, M., (eds.). 395-405

Herzlinger, G. 2012. The Downslope Movement of Lithic Artifacts: A Field Experiment. Journal of the Israel Prehistoric Society, 42: 1-21.

Rotenstreich stipend 2017/18

Presidential Stipend 2015/16

Subject: The Transformative Value of Rewriting in The Works of Reinaldo Arenas

Supervisor: Prof. Ruth Fine

Publications:

Kehila, Ofek, “The Episode of Manuel de Sosa Coitiño: A Story of Love, Madness and Death?”, Anales cervantinos 51 (2019): 179-196 (in Spanish).

Rotenstreich Scholarship 2019/2020

MA Honors Program 2015/2016

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

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