Azrieli Fellows Program

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

Supervisor: Prof. Eyal Ginio and Dr. Julia Rubanovich

Bio: I hold a B.A. with a major in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies and a minor in Arabic Language and Literature, as well as an M.A. in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies. I completed both of my degrees with honors. My Master's thesis, entitled "The Ottoman Sultan in Safavid Shah's Eyes: Self and Other Perception in The Personal Writings of Shah Tahmasp I (r. 1524-1576)," was written under the supervision of Prof. Eyal Ginio and Dr. Julia Rubanovich. It aimed to examine the ways in which the second Safavid ruler of Persia constructed and presented the political, cultural, and religious image of the Ottoman empire and its ruler Suleiman I (r. 1520-1566), as opposed to how he presented his own image.

Abstract:  My doctoral dissertation revolves around the question of why various members of the Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal dynasties engaged in the writing of self-narratives characterized by autobiographical elements during the 16th and 17th centuries. Through a systematic and careful reading of diverse self-narratives written in Persian, Ottoman-Turkish, and Arabic, I seek to analyze the ways in which different rulers, princes, and princesses in these royal houses shaped and represented their self-images and understood such notions as kingship, sovereignty, legitimacy, and subjectivity.

Azrieli Scholarship 2021/22

Presidents Stipend 2020/21

Abstract: My research focuses on exploration, by investigating the nature of the exploration process itself – seeking to examine the interplay between the search for information in the exterior environment and one’s own mind. Specifically, examining the external exploration of the surrounding by tracking eye gaze behavior, and the internal exploration of different types of stored information, concerning past events and semantic knowledge. the research methologies are based on an interdisciplinary approach, combining diverse research tools – from behavioral and physiological measurements to advanced neuroimaging techniques. My research aims to shed light on the fluid and constant trade-off between these two prominent modes of exploration, and their implications on decision making, learning and mood fluctuations.

Publications: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Tal_Nahari2/research

Azrieli Scholarship 2019/2020

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