Past Time Dimension - March Towards Democracy
Ascher Anat
Personal Details:Tel Aviv University, Department of Philosophy
Title of Research:
"Inner-Discord: Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Politological Thought through Jacques Rancière's
Conceptual Prism"
Email: ascheran@post.tau.ac.il
anat.ascher@gmail.com
Summary of Research:
A vast part of the writing regarding the philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau singles him out as one of the first democratic thinkers of modern age, as well as one of the first totalitarian thinkers of this epoch. Indeed, his philosophy supposedly contains some sort of a contradiction, two seemingly opposing potentials for political government. The attempt to explain this duality, this immanent dichotomy in his thought, was one of the main quandaries to be taken up by his commentators over the years. I believe that by interpreting Rousseau's thought in light of Jacques Rancière's philosophical method, I will be able to offer a new and innovative way for tackling this matter.
Therefore, the core of my study can be described as rethinking, through the contemporary eyes of Jacques Rancière, several aspects in the political thought of Rousseau. I intend to explore the nature of political action in Rousseau's writings, and to achieve a new and profound understanding of the image of the political person that is revealed in his thought. Furthermore, I will deal with an issue of great concern to both Rousseau and Rancière – that of education. I will maintain that by reading these two philosophies side by side, a new account of education can be suggested, one in which it can serve as a means for political and intellectual emancipation.
Jobani Yuval
Personal Details:Princeton School of Social Science, Institute for Advanced Study
Title of Research:
"The Challenge of Democracy in the Post Secular Age"
Leshem Dotan
Personal Details:Tel Aviv University, Minerva Center for the Humanities
Email: dontanleshem@yahoo.com
Title of Research:
"Genealogy of the Contemporary Economy and its Relation to Politics,
Philosophical Life and the Law"
I am a postdoctoral fellow at Minerva Humanities center, Tel Aviv university.
My current research is designed to pursue the following goal: proposing a redefinition of the modern economy by introducing the Christian concept of 'economy' into the existing accounts of how contemporary economy is configured.
The original meaning of the term 'economy' (οἰκονομία), grounded in the Classical moment, refers to the activity of the organization and management (νέμειν) of a household (οἰκος). In the Imperial moment, the economy surpassed the confines of the household, as people began to be regarded as economizing in all spheres of life, from the sphere that links a person to his self and body, through the household and the polis, to the cosmological sphere. The meaning of the word 'economy' in the Christian moment stemmed from the interpretation given by the Church Fathers to the term's appearance in the Pauline epistles: it referred to the realization of God's plan of salvation, from the beginning of the world to the fullness of ages. At the heart of this plan is the incarnation of the Son of God in the son of man in what came to be known as "the economy of the incarnation." Even though the word 'economy' appears in ecclesiastical writings thousands of times and with various meanings, in the great majority of cases the term appears in the context of the "economy [οἰκονομίαν] suitable to the fullness of the ages, that is, the recapitulation of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth" (Ephesians 1:10).
In my research I attempt to describe how (if at all) the 'economic trinity' of excess, prudence, and surplus is configured in modernity. My initial hypothesis is that these three concepts appear in contemporary economics in the following three complementary claims. First, economic theory situates the condition of excess in man himself, conceptualized as a creature whose desire for more of the same thing regardless of the nature of that thing cannot by definition reach saturation. Second, economic theory models man as a prudent (i.e. "rational") actor who, faced with his excessive desires, strives to achieve maximum satisfaction; Contemporary economic theory suggests that this type of rationality can be inferred from man's revealed preferences. Third, this theory conceives of man's prudent actions as the primary source of surplus. Moreover, the ideal, the end to which the political sovereign is recruited, is what economic theorists term "Pareto optimality," obtained under the following circumstances: faced with the human condition of excessive desires, the prudent actions of all individuals converge so as to generate the maximum possible aggregate surplus given the initial allocation of resources. If this hypothesis is correct, then in the Classical, Christian and Contemporary moments man is an economic creature who, faced with excess, acquires a practical and theoretical disposition of prudence in order to generate surplus. In each moment, man, as a being in the world, is faced with excess that surpasses his rationality, but nevertheless chooses to engage rationally with this excess. This encounter between man's rationality and that which surpasses it generates a surplus whose designation man is able to control. My assumption is that the element that underwent change over the years is the origin of excess, and that this change also brought about a change in the nature of the thing economized, as well as in the designation of the surplus. In each moment, man chose to attribute the excess he was bound to face throughout his life to a different origin. In the Classical moment it was attributed to the circularity of nature; in the Christian moment – to divinity; and in the Contemporary moment excess is thought to be located within man himself, in his desires that know no limit. In all three moments, man is assumed to acquire a prudent disposition when faced with excess. As for the changes in the designation of the surplus generated, in the Classical moment it is a surplus of leisure that allows the master/citizen to participate in politics and engage in philosophy; in the Christian moment the surplus is to be found within the economic domain, in the divinization of the world, which will culminate in the fullness of ages; while in the Contemporary moment it is also to be found in the economic domain, but this time in unlimited economic growth.
Mano Davide
Personal Details:The Graduate School of Historical Studies - Tel Aviv University
E-mail: dvireman@post.tau.ac.il
Title of Research:
"The ‘Trial of the Revolution' of Pitigliano: Christians and Jews
in the Anti-French Uprisings of 1799"
Mr. Mano graduated from Venice University "Ca' Foscari" in 2000 with a thesis on Hebrew Medieval Literature.
He is a Ph.D. student at the Graduate School of Historical Studies (Tel Aviv University) and is currently writing his doctoral dissertation.
His research focuses on judicial sources from the Tuscan village of Pitigliano and proposes a micro-analysis of the relations between Jews and Christians during the Italian Revolutionary Age (1796-1801).
Mr. Mano is the author of several articles on Jewish subjects and a translator from Hebrew literature.
Obeng-Odoom Franklin
Personal Details:University of Sydney, Department of Political Economy
Title of Research:
"The Tensions and Contradictions in Rapid Urbanization in Ghana: Implications for Urban Governance"
Franklin Obeng-Odoom is a Ph.D Candidate and a Teaching Fellow at the Department of Political Economy, the University of Sydney. His research interest is in economic development, focussing on the political economy of urbanisation, and debates in economic development. His research has appeared in journals such as Regional Studies, Cities, Journal of Housing and the Built Environment, Housing Studies, Habitat International, Development and Journal of Developing Societies. He is the Book Review Editor of Journal of International Real Estate and Construction Studies and serves on the editorial boards of Journal of Sustainable Development and African Review of Economics and Finance. He is a Dan David Prize Scholar.
More about Franklin's work can be seen at http://www.jjang.rgro.net/franklin.htm
Oser Jennifer
Personal Details:Federmann School of Public Policy & Government, Hebrew University, PhD Candidate
Multidisciplinary Program on Inequality and Social Policy, Harvard University, Research Fellow
Annenberg School for Communications, University of Pennsylvania, Visiting Scholar
Email: jennifer.oser@mail.huji.ac.il
215-681-3428 (U.S. cell) http://www.hks.harvard.edu/inequality/ENIWeb/ENIvisitors.htm
Title of Research:
"Expanded Citizen Participation and Participatory Equality: A Vicious or Virtuous Circle?"ENI visiting research fellows, 2010-2011
Jennifer Oser is a Ph.D. candidate in public policy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her doctoral research is a cross-national analysis of democratic participation and participatory inequality. Additional research interests include the political environment of public policymaking; social policy; immigration policy; and comparative welfare state research. Jenny completed her undergraduate degree at Harvard University where she worked with Prof. Theda Skocpol and Prof. Marshall Ganz as a research coordinator for the "Civic Engagement Project." She is currently a research associate with Prof. David Levi-Faur on the Israel component of the Comparative Agenda's Project led by Prof. Frank Baumgartner.
Weiffen Brigitte
Personal Details:University of Konstanz, Department of Politics and Managements
Title of Research:
"Democracy and Integration: Bridging Divides in Post-Conflict and Democratizing Societies"
