Ilana Szobel
Brandeis University
Ilana Szobel is Professor of Modern Hebrew Literature on the Joseph H. and Belle R. Braun Chair in the Near Eastern and Judaic Studies department, and Core Faculty at the Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Brandeis University.
She received her doctorate in 2008 from New York University (Her dissertation won the 2007 Ben Halpern Award for Best Dissertation from the Association for Israel Studies). Her book, A Poetics of Trauma: The Work of Dahlia Ravikovitch (University Press of New England, 2013) is the first full-length study of the renowned Israeli poet, translator, peace activist, and 1998 Israel Prize laureate Dahlia Ravikovitch (1936-2005). Her book, Flesh of My Flesh: Sexual Violence in Modern Hebrew Literature (SUNY Press, Contemporary Jewish Literature and Culture book series, 2021), explores the literary history of sexual assault in Hebrew literature, and situates the rhetorics of sexual aggression within the context of gender, race, disability, and the Zionism project. The book was a finalist for the Concordia University Library – Azrieli Institute Award for Best Book in Israel Studies.
In addition to her academic books, Professor Szobel edited Tsvia Litevsky’s poetry book, Core of Stillness (עין הדומיה) (Carmel Publishing House 2021), and Ilana Szobel’s poetry book, Once Upon a Days (בשכבר הימים הבאים) is forthcoming in Iton 77 Publishing House.
At Harvard, Szobel will be working on her book project, The Un-Chosen Body: Disability Culture in Israel. The book examines the ways in which disability as a lived reality informs Israeli film, performance, and literature. It focuses specifically on the creative work of Israeli women with disabilities who participate in a cultural space that excludes them due to both their gender and their disability, and shows how they reframe and reimagine cultural, artistic, and political accessibility through their creative work.
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