Schusterman Visiting Israeli Professor of Israel Studies

In addition to broadening our local reach, a visiting Israeli scholar would help to strengthen some of the Israeli partnerships we have already begun to cultivate. We have institutional partnerships with the University of Haifa and Ben Gurion University, and are working to further develop our relationship with BGU to build a strong scholarly exchange at both the faculty and graduate levels. As part of that effort, in conjunction with the Department of Geography and the College of Arts and Sciences, JS will host David Newman, Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences at BGU for a visit this Spring. We have also invited literary scholar Catherine Rottenberg, from BGU's Department of Foreign Literatures and Linguistics, to give a talk on her recent book, Performing Americanness: Race, Class, And Gender in Modern African-American and Jewish American Literature. In November of this year Ayelet Harel-Shalev of Ben-Gurion University will deliver the talk entitled, "Comparative Perspectives on Minority-Majority Relations in Israel." A visiting Israeli scholar would build on this growing interest by deepening awareness of Israel on campus and strengthening the foundation for these partnerships with Israeli higher education.