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: