History
Subject: Envisioning Palestine. The Construction of a National Space
Supervisor: Prof. Ofer Ashkenazi
Abstract: In my research project I examine the effects of photography on the transformation of Mandate Palestine from a tourist attraction to a political space. I work with photographs from different political bodies and private photographers who were actively engaged in the creation of a specific image of Palestine abroad. The focus on photographs in the research on the self-perception of the inhabitants of Palestine and on the global perception of Palestine abroad enables me to get new insights about nation building efforts, socio-political patterns and the ways in which visitors to and inhabitants of Palestine crossed and shaped the country’s outlook. In my research I, thus, trace networks of photographers in and outside of Palestine, their work and the complicated relationship between aesthetics and politics in a place that was influenced by Jewish and Arab nation building efforts as well as by British imperialist aspirations.
Bio: I am a graduate student at the Richard Koebner Minerva Center for German History at the Hebrew University. I am especially interested in the intersections of the history of Jewish migration, the history of photography and the history of globalization. My dissertation, Envisioning Palestine: Photography and the Creation of a Multi-National Space, explores the tension between ethnic particularism and transnational mobility in British Mandate Palestine, as seen through the prism of photography.
Publications:
Grossmann, Rebekka: “Image Transfer and Visual Friction. Staging Palestine in the National Socialist Spectacle”, forthcoming with the Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook 2019
Grossmann, Rebekka: “Negotiating Presences. Palestine and the Weimar German Gaze“. Jewish Social Studies 23, no. 2 (2018): 137-172.
Rebekka Großmann, Henry-Jones-Loge. Jüdisches Selbstbewusstsein und Aufbruch in die Moderne, in: Hamburger Schlüsseldokumente zur deutsch-jüdischen Geschichte. <http://juedische-geschichte-online.net/beitrag/jgo:article-167> [03.07.2017].
Rebekka Großmann, „Mutter Borchardt“ – eine jüdische Reederin, in: Hamburger Schlüsseldokumente zur deutsch-jüdischen Geschichte. <http://juedische-geschichte-online.net/beitrag/jgo:article-168> [03.07.2017].
Mosse Stipend 2014/15