The Program in Cultural Studies
Where Worlds Meet: About the Cultural Studies Program
The Cultural Studies Program, established in the year 2000, is an interdisciplinary program at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem run jointly by the Faculty of Humanities and the Faculty of Social Sciences. The Program is a leader in the field of cultural criticism, creating a dynamic scholarly and intellectual arena for investigating contemporary cultural complexity.
The Cultural Studies Program is the only program in the country that combines issues and methodologies drawn from both the Humanities and the Social Sciences to foster daring critical perspectives. The Program advances groundbreaking agendas of study and research, connecting disciplinary worlds that rarely intersect elsewhere. The Program is not concerned with merely breaking down boundaries between disciplines but rather seeks to bring worlds together and to create dialogues between new and old areas of knowledge.
Every year, the program offers a range of cutting-edge core courses, focusing on questions including space, migration, emotions and affect, power relations, and cultural change. Likewise, it addresses issues related to visual and digital culture, consumer culture, popular culture, and more.
The Program attracts students from a wide range of disciplines in the Humanities and Social Sciences as well as graduates of art academies, in addition to professionals and social activists engaged in a variety of areas, from education to architecture. Many of the Program’s graduates continue on to further studies overseas or find positions in leading academic and cultural institutions in Israel and around the world, aided by the support that the Program offers.
In recent years, the Program has created unique research and study frameworks that promote an array of formats for advanced interdisciplinary research. These include the “Chevruta in Cultural Studies” (study sessions in small groups modelled on traditional Jewish learning formats to facilitate both independent and joint inquiry), our internship program, occasional laboratories and the ongoing departmental seminar.
The Program is open to BA graduates with a degree in the Humanities or Social Sciences, graduates of art programs, and professionals from various fields, among them education, architecture, or law. It suits anyone who is eager to analyze social and cultural phenomena from a critical perspective or is interested in advancing an individual intellectual project that does fit easily into the constraints of with traditional disciplinary units. The Program brings together different worlds and constitutes a platform for mutual inspiration among graduates of sociology and anthropology, literature and theater, communications or history, philosophy or geography, well as graduates of special programs such as Amirim (Interdisciplinary Honors Program in the Humanities), PPE (Philosophy, Politics, and Economics), MBA, or history of art, graduates of the Bezalel Academy for Arts and Design, Shenkar College of Engineering, Design and Art, or colleges such as Sapir, Beit Berl and more.
Further information about the program and its content can be found on our Facebook page.
Unique Learning Frameworks
Unique Learning Frameworks
In recent years the Cultural Studies Program has created unique frameworks for study and research, aiming to develop innovative and advanced interdisciplinary inquiry. These include the “Chevruta in Cultural Studies” (study sessions in small groups modelled on traditional Jewish learning formats to facilitate both independent and joint inquiry), as well as the “Practicum” or Internship initiative which places our students in leading cultural institutions in Israel. A regular Departmental Seminar focuses on various topics and enables students, members of staff, and external lecturers to present their research.
Departmental Seminar
The Departmental Seminar provides a platform for the Program’s academic staff, students, and other lecturers from Israel and abroad to present the fruits of their research. The seminar offers insights into ground-breaking studies in the field of culture, enriching the knowledge of all its participants. The seminar is led by a member of the Program’s academic staff and takes place around once a month.
Topics presented in the Departmental Seminar over recent years include the following:
Liroy Choufan: “The Gap between Clothing and Body: A Taste of Fashion Theory”
Dr. Yael Ben Tzvi Morad: “Home and Exile in New Palestinian Film and Television Dramas in Israel”
Dr. Lutz Fiedler (Berlin): “About ‘Matzpen’ and Global Left Movements”
Dr. Gili Hammer: “I Still See the Dancer in Me” – Aesthetics of Disability and Movement Vocabulary in Integrated Performance”
Dr. Emilie Pine (Dublin): “Witnesses to Pain, Feeling Change: The Challenge of Empathy in Presenting Violence”
Full-day seminars devoted to Michel Foucault, Frantz Fanon, Gilles Deleuze and other thinkers have also taken place.
The “Chevruta in Cultural Studies”
In Cultural Studies, we attribute great importance to encouraging contexts for discussion and cooperation outside official departmental frameworks, on the basis of the understanding that they help to develop the academic, social, and human capital among the Program’s students and constitute a basis for widening our collective intellectual horizons. Modelled on traditional Jewish learning formats, this framework offers opportunities to hasten the flow of knowledge, to inspire, to expand horizons, and to advance shared aims among the Program’s students.
Both first-year and second-year students in the Program can participate in the “Chevruta” initiative. In this framework, small groups focus on a selected topic, guided by a member of the academic staff. Over the academic year, the students meet among themselves on a number of occasions as defined by the relevant regulations, developing an interpersonal dialogue concerning the topic selected. Participation in this framework carries two credits for active participation, no grade is given.
In recent years such groups have focused on the following topics: visual space; marginal culture and forms of resistance; society in digital culture; landscape; autobiography; and creativity.
Cultural Studies Internship (“Practicum”)
The Practicum will not take place in the academic year 2022–23.
To promote a connection between the world of cultural theory and the practical world of cultural engagement, the Program offers internships in various cultural institutions in Israel. In this framework, interns receive personal academic supervision in the production of a research paper based on their internship. Furthermore, students become closely acquainted with, and gain experience and professional skills, in the worlds of content that they study and research. For information concerning placements see here.
The “Practicum” carries two credits.
Among the partner institutions are:
Curriculum
The program of study comprises different kinds of courses: compulsory courses, core courses, and elective courses, accompanied by unique study frameworks.
1. Compulsory courses: There are two compulsory courses, one theoretical (annual) and one methodological (taught in the second semester). These courses equip students with systematic knowledge about basic principles of critical theory and skills in a range of research practices.
2. Core courses: Every year the Program offers a different range of courses, among them various topics including anthropology of the senses, popular music, everyday cultures, digital culture, the big data revolution, popular culture in the Arab world, and many others.
3. Elective courses: Students select elective courses according to their personal program, advised by the Program’s academic staff. Elective courses are graduate-level courses from the various programs of study offered by the Faculty of Humanities and the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University. Study in additional faculties is possible if justified by the nature of the individual research that a student is carrying out.
The MA Program
The MA program in Cultural Studies is a unique personal program comprising compulsory courses, core courses, and elective courses. It is the only program in the country that combines approaches and theories drawn from the Humanities and the Social sciences. It brings together and connects between designated courses (core courses) and courses from the Faculties of Humanities and Social Sciences (elective courses).
Students in the research track need to write a thesis to complete their degrees, while those in the non-research track submit additional seminar papers.
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Research Track (Track A) |
Non-Research Track (Track B) |
Comments |
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Compulsory courses |
6 credits |
6 credits |
The compulsory courses (“Methodological Approaches to Cultural Studies” and “Critical Theories of Culture”) must be taken in the first year. |
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Core Courses |
12 credits |
12 credits |
Core courses can be chosen from the list in the course catalog. |
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Elective courses |
14 credits |
16 credits |
Students select MA courses from the courses offered by the Faculty of Humanities and the Faculty of Social Sciences, guided by the program’s academic staff. |
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Seminar papers |
4 credits: One paper in the first year |
8 credits Two papers: one in the first year and one in the second year |
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Departmental seminar |
Students must participate for at least one year (no credits). |
Students must participate for at least one year (no credits). |
The seminar provides an opportunity for encounters and dialogue. There are no assignments, and no credits are awarded. |
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Thesis |
Writing of an MA thesis |
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Supervised by and with the personal guidance of a member of the university’s academic staff. |
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Total no. of credits required |
36 |
42 |
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Please note that some of the departments do not give 4 extra credits for the submission of a seminar paper in addition to the course credits (for example, Sociology). Please check this with the department offering the course.
You can view and sign up for courses in the course catalog.
Transfer from the non-research track to the research track is conditional on meeting the following requirements:
1. An average of 90 or above in the program’s compulsory courses.
2. An average of 90 or above in any required make-up courses
3. The student has obtained the consent of a supervisor to supervise the dissertation.
4. Declaration of intention to finish within two years – a declaration form must be signed
5. The transfer from one track to another must be completed by the beginning of the first semester of the second year.
Faculty
Prof. Louise Bethlehem
Associate Professor in the Cultural Studies Program and the Department of English
Prof. Bethlehem’s research focuses on postcolonial literature and postcolonial theories, race and racism, apartheid and post-apartheid literature and culture, the Anthropocene and speculative fiction.
Office hours: 14:30-15:30 on Tuesdays, by appointment, room 23403
02-5883983
Louise.bethlehem@mail.huji.ac.il
Dr. Nicole Hochner
Head of the Cultural Studies Program
Senior Lecturer in the Cultural Studies Program and in the Department of Political Science
Dr. Hochner’s research focuses on political theory.
Office hours: 10:30-11:30 on Wednesdays, 11:30-12:30 on Tuesdays, by appointment
02-5883173
nicole.hochner@mail.huji.ac.il
Dr. Carola Hilfrich - Emeritus
Senior Lecturer in the Cultural Studies Program and in the Department of General and Comparative Literature
Dr. Hilfrich’s research focuses on cultural theory, material culture, and emotions.
Carola.hilfrich@mail.huji.ac.il
Dr. Gili Hammer
Senior Lecturer in the Cultural Studies Program and in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Dr. Hammer’s research focuses on the body, senses, and disabilities.
02-5883040
Dr. Hammer’s article on sensory medical knowledge
Dr. Lea Taragin-Zeller
Lecturer in the Cultural Studies Program and in the Federmann School of Public Policy
Office Hours: by appointment
Dr. Ido Ramati
Senior Lecturer in the Cultural Studies Program and in the Department of Communications and Journalism
Dr. Ramati’s research focuses on the connection between media technology, language, and culture and on media spaces
Office Hours: By appointment, room 24514
Dr. Dani Schrire
Senior Lecturer in the Cultural Studies Program and the Program for Folklore and Folk Culture
Dr. Schrire’s research focuses on folk culture and everyday culture (walking, the heritage industry, national culture, and ethnic cultures in the Israeli context)
Office hours: By appointment
025881633
Room 6726, Faculty of Humanities
CROSSROADS: THE EMERGENCE OF JEWISH CULTURAL SPACES IN PRACTICE
Administrative Staff
Maya Gonen
Coordinator of the Cultural Studies Program and PPE
Room 27316, Bloc 7, Faculty of Social Sciences, Mount Scopus, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
05-5880371
Inbal Pesoa
Administrator for PPE and Cultural Studies Teaching and Students
Room 27316, Bloc 7, Faculty of Social Sciences, Mount Scopus, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
02-5883795
Contact
For more information please contact our program coordinator
Maya Gonen email: mayasc@savion.huji.ac.il , phone: +972-2-5883795)
Inbal Pesoa email: inbalpe@savion.huji.ac.il
or our Head of Program:
Dr. Nicole Hochner email: nicole.hochner@mail.huji.ac.il