PhD Honors 2021/22

Supervisor:  Dr. Orit Peleg-Barkat

Abstract:  I’m an archaeologist; specializing in classical periods at the levant, in architectural decoration and in the application of computational methods and 3D modeling on the study of stone decoration. In my PhD I am studying the development of the urban layout at the south-western hill of Jerusalem from the Hellenistic period to the destruction of the city in AD70.
I am a graduate of the Mandel School M.A. Research Track Honors Program and the “Late Antiquity” interdisciplinary M.A. Research Honors Program. In my masters I have studied the architectural decoration found at the fortress-palace in Herodium, its cultural influence and stone-carving methods.
I am the head of the New Hebrew University Expedition for the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem, together with Dr. Orit Peleg-Barkat and Dr. Oren Gutfeld; member of the Ehud Netzer Expedition for Herodium; member of the Hebrew University Expedition for Horvat Midras.

Publications:  Peleg-Barkat, O. and Ben-Haim, A. (2017). ‘Monumental Ionic columns from areas Q and H’, in:Geva, H., Jewish Quarter Excavations in the Old City of Jerusalem Conducted by Nahman Avigad, 1969–1982, volume VI: Areas J, N, Z and Other Studies, The Israel Exploration Society and the Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, pp. 68–95.

בן־חיים, א׳ וכלף, א׳ (2018). ״עדויות למבנה מונומנטלי ממערב להר־הבית בשלהי ימי הבית השני״. חידושים בארכיאולוגיה של ירושלים וסביבותיה, י״ב, 56–77.

Ben-Haim, A. (forthcoming), ‘The Architectural Decoration of Lower Herodium’, in: Porat, R., Kalman, Y., and Chachy, R., Herodium II: Lower Herodium and other studies, The Israel Exploration Society and the Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

בן־חיים, א׳ (בדפוס). ״עיטורי האבן בארמון־מבצר ההר בהרודיון: אומנים וסגנונות בחצרו של הורדוס״, ארץ ישראל ל״ה: ספר הלל גבע. החברה לחקירת ארץ־ישראל ועתיקותיה, ירושלים.

Year: 2021/2022 President Stipend

MA Honors Program 2015/16

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

Supervisor:  Yuri Pines

Abstract:  I’m doing a research into the state-Buddhism relation under the Sui 隋 dynasty (581-618). I investigate how the Sui rulers used Buddhism to advance multiple imperial projects, and how the Buddhist clergy (the sangha) attempted to leverage the state-Buddhism relation to their advantage. Both of these two perspectives will be presented in the context of changes in Sui’s overall policies, namely, the re-establishment of new institutional order, the domestic consolidation and foreign expansion, and the dynasty’s eventual collapse. I focus on some milestones that caused changes in the court-sangha relations.

Bio:  I’m from China. I spent the past six years in HongKong and Israel pursuing two Masters degrees. The research focus of my first MA (HKU) is on the doctrinal differences between Chinese Chan and Japanese Zen. In my second MA (HUJI), I explore the economic rationale behind Northern Zhou’s persecution of Buddhism. Now I work on the state-Buddhism relation in the late sixth and early seventh China. My PhD dissertation deals with this subject in a double perspective: that of the state’s religious policy on the one hand and that of the Buddhist response on the other. Outside academia, I am a big fan of documentary photography and Argentine Tango.

President Stipend 2020/21