PhD - Current

Subject:  An Island in a Cosmopolitan Sea: Toward a Definition of Kakawin Poetics

Supervisor: Prof. Yigal Bronner and Prof. Ronit Ricci

Abstract: Danielle's research examines the corpus of kakawin literature - a form of court poetry written in the Kawi language, which served as the preferred medium of aesthetic and political self-representation of the ruling Javanese elites between the 9th and 15th centuries CE. The research explores the set of literary tools, figural as well as prosodial, which were developed and used by the Javanese poets, in their process of creating a local literary identity within the larger cosmopolitan space known as the "Sanskrit cosmopolis".  Special attention is given to the creative and innovative ways in which the Javanese poets borrowed literary models and text-building strategies from Sanskrit kāvya literature while reconfiguring and rearticulating them to fit their new aesthetic and cultural environment.  

Bio: Danielle Chen is a Ph.D. student at the Department of Asian Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, under the supervision of Prof. Ronit Ricci and Prof. Yigal Bronner, and a member of the ERC research group "The new Ecology of Expressive Modes in Early Modern South India" organized by Prof. David Shulman. Danielle holds an MA degree from the Hebrew University in which she focused on the aesthetic theory of Abhinavagupta, the 11th century Kashmiri philosopher and poetician. She is currently working on Old Javanese (Kawi) texts and textuality and is especially interested in the complex set of interactions they shared with Sanskrit literature and forms of conceptualization.

President Stipend 2019/20

Azrieli Scholarship 2021/22

Subject: Talmudic reasonning and the Sasanian context of the Babylonian Talmud

MA Honors 2018/19

Subject: Jewish Women's Religious and Medical Practices at the late Ottoman Empire

Supervisor: Prof. Liat Kozma

Bio: Anabella Esperanza is a MA graduate in the Department for the Study of Jewish Languages and Literatures: Ladino Studies. Her MA thesis, "Women's Writings in Judezmo (Ladino) in the Late Ottoman Empire (1871-1902): Istanbul, Salonica and Serres", examine aspects of literacy, reading and writing practices of the firsts female writers in Judezmo (Ladino) in the Late Ottoman Empire. 
Anabella is a P.h.D student under Prof. Liat Kozma's guidance.  Her research explore Jewish Women's Religious and Medical Practices in the Late Ottoman Empire in the context of the Ottoman Muslim Society. Anabella is part of Mandel School for Humanities and the ERC research group 'Regional History of Middle East Medicine'. 

President Stipend 2018/19

Topic:  Public Opinion Polling and the Future(s) of the German Democratic Republic, 1966–1989

Supervisor:  Prof. Ofer Ashkenazi

Bio: I am a research student in history, focusing mainly on cultural history, Alltagsgeschichte, and knowledge production in Cold War Germany. I obtained my BA and MA from the same department and from the HUJI Institute of History Honors Program. I also participated in the Mandel School MA Honors Program, and am a fellow at the Koebner Center for German History. Between the years 2019-2021 I served as editor-in-chief of the student journal "Hayo Haya – a Young Forum for History." Beside my research, I am interested in cinema, socialism, and urban planning.

Abstract:  My dissertation will explore the widespread phenomenon of public opinion polling in East Germany and the multiple roles it played in the effort to sustain and reform the state’s power structure between the mid-1960s and the fall of the Berlin Wall. Through an analysis of the surveys and reports produced by the state-sanctioned social research institutes, I aim to establish the centrality of this method to the cultural, social, and political history of the German Democratic Republic and to understand the ways in which it was used by citizens in unexpected ways to imagine the future(s) of the GDR.

Publications:
Geller, Mor. “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Socialism: Education and Entertainment in the Musical Film Heißer Sommer (GDR, 1968).” Slil – Journal for History, Film, and Television (Forthcoming). [in Hebrew]

Mosse Stipend 2021/22