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Prof. Liran Razinsky

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liranr@biu.ac.il
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    Scholarships, Fellowships and Grants:

    June 2009: Post-doctorate scholarship from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (The Lady Davis Foundation).

    January 2009: Post-doctorate scholarship from The European Forum at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Paul Demarais Center).

    June 2008: Scholarship from Cornell University’s School of Criticism and Theory.

    July 2007: Post-doctorate scholarship for a one year post-doc abroad offered by the Hebrew University Rectorate (academic secretariat).

    July – August 2004: Scholarship from the Center for Austrian Studies for two-month German course in Vienna.

    2004: Scholarship for research in psychoanalysis, from the Sigmund Freud Center for Research in Psychoanalysis at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Salinski Fund).

    2004: Scholarship for research in Austrian culture, from the Center for Austrian Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

    2003: Scholarship for research in psychoanalysis, from the Sigmund Freud Center for Research in Psychoanalysis at the Hebrew university (Salinski Fund).

    2002: A doctorate scholarship from the French government.

    2001 – 2005: Annual scholarship for direct doctorate program students, Department of Psychology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

    2001:  Special prize from the rector for academic excellence in MA studies.

    2000:  Rector’s prize for academic excellence after the 1st year in the MA program.

    1999:  Rector’s prize for MA (for academic excellence during the BA).

    1999:  Scholarship from the French institute for an extensive French course in Strasbourg.

    1998: Dean’s prize for academic excellence after the 2nd year in the BA.

    1997: Dean’s prize for academic excellence after the 1st year in the BA.

    1996-1999 – Scholarship offered by the Amirim program for outstanding students.

     

    Organization of Academic Conferences:

    Co-organization of an international conference on “Writing the Holocaust and WW II Today. On Jonathan Littell’s Les Bienveillantes”, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, June 21-23, 2009 (with Prof. Cyril Aslanov and Aurélie Barjonet from University of Versailles, France).

     

    Co-organization of an international Workshop: “The Representation of the Holocaust under Question: Jonathan Littell’s Les Bienveillantes,” at the Center for Jewish Studies, University of Antwerp, December 17, 2009.

     

    Co-organization of a conference: “Writing or Life? The work of Jorge Semprun,” at the Department of Romance Studies, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (together with the Program for Hermeneutics and Culture, Bar Ilan University), January 26, 2012.

     

    Co-organization of the international conference: “Between Psychoanalysis and Literature: The question of Text.” Joint project of the Program for Hermeneutics and Culture, Bar Ilan University and the École Doctorale Recherches en Psychanalyse et Psychopathologie, Université Paris-Diderot (France).

     

    Co-organization of the workshop  “Donnez-moi de vos nouvelles : La figure de l’autre dans le récit .” Joint Project of Universities Paris III, Paris VII, Paris XIII, Lille 3 and Bar Ilan. Paris, September 30- October 1st.

     

    Special Summer PhD Seminar given together with Dr. Raphaël Sigal (Amherst College): “The Book as Subject.” Bar Ilan University, 26-31 October 2016.

     

    2012-2017: Organization of several lectures and PhD Seminars given by leading scholars abroad at Bar Ilan: Dr. Marcus Coelen (Munich), Prof. Susanne Lüdemnann (Munich), Prof. Neil Hertz (Johns Hopkins), Prof. Jeremy Popkin (Kentucky), Prof Maurice Samuels (Yale).

     

    2016-2017: Initiation of the lectures and seminars series “Theory Today,” aimed to offer the public current directions in the broad field of Theory and ponder on how can theory be revitalized today:

                            2016 lecture and Seminar: Prof Evelyne Grossman (Paris Diderot)

                            2017 lecture and Seminar: Prof Samuel Weber (Northwestern)

     

    Co-organization of the international conference “Sartre’s Réflexions sur la Question Juive 70 Years After, ” The Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism, Hebrew University, December 18-20, 2016.

     

    Co-organization of an international workshop “Le souvenir d’enfance” (“Childhood memories”), February 24, 2017, Paris. (5th Babylone Conference – Psychanalyse & Littérature)

     

    June 20-25  2017: Organization of a PhD. Summer School “Psychoanalysis and Critique,” joint activity of The psychoanalysis PhD School at Univ. Paris-Diderot and the Hermeneutics and Cultural Studies Program at Bar Ilan

    Research

    French and Comparative Literature (20th century), Psychoanalysis, French Thought, Critical Theory.

    My current main research project, “Fantasies of Self-Representation: From Classic Autobiography to the Digital Age,” focuses on the stakes involved with representing oneself, both in autobiography and in more everyday self representation. In this context I am interested in autobiographical authors such as Michel Leiris but also in non literary endeavors at self representation, such as contemporary technological  attempts of creating a digital  archive of one’s memories.

    I have written about death, mostly within the context of a critique of the psychoanalytic approach to death and death anxiety (Freud, Psychoanalysis and Death, Cambridge University Press, 2013).

    I have written on Holocaust literature, both a series of papers and a co-edited volume on Jonathan Littell’s The Kindly Ones (Les Bienveillantes, נוטות החסד) and texts on Jorge Semprun, on whom I  have also edited a Special issue of Yale French Studies (2016).

    I have written on Elias Khoury (Yalo, Bab al-Shams) and papers on Albert Cohen, Maupassant, Bataille and others. Some other authors I am interested in are Leiris, Duras and Perec.

    I am interested in Freud as an author (and have published some papers on his texts).

    I am also interested in the critical ethos of the humanities. 

    Courses

    Seminars taught in recent years:

    “Interpreting the Now - Understanding Present Times”,

    “The Self-Representing Subject: The Dynamics of Self-representation”,

    “Death and Existential Concerns in Psychoanalytic Theory”,

    “Through a Child’s Eyes: Representations of Childhood in Literature”,

    “The Mind  as a Text: Lacan and Derrida (A reading Seminar)”

    “Saying the Unsayable: Holocaust, Writing, Testimony”,

    “The Modern Subject and Questions of Identity in Modern Literature”,

    “Text, Subject, World”

    Ph.D. Workshop: “Intellectuals, Universities, Society”. 

    Publications

    For downloadable PDF versions of my papers see:

    https://biu.academia.edu/LiranRazinsky

     

    LIST OF PUBLICATIONS                               (Last updated: January 1st, 2017)

     

                                                      

    DOCTORAL DISSERTATION

     

    1. Death in Psychoanalytic Theory: A Critical Examination of the Psychoanalytic Attitude towards Human Finitude and the Existential Anxiety Thereof. Doctoral dissertation. Supervisor: Prof. Rachel Blass, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, June, 2008.

     

    BOOKS

     

    2.  Freud, Psychoanalysis and Death (Cambridge University Press, 2013). 303 pages. Paperback edition: December 2014.

     

    BOOKS EDITED

    3. (with Barjonet, A.) (Editors), Writing the Holocaust Today: Critical Perspectives on The Kindly Ones (Rodopi, 2012). 265 pages.

     

    SPECIAL ISSUES OF PERIODICALS EDITED

    4. (Editor), Writing and Life, Literature and History: On Jorge Semprun. Special issue of Yale French Studies, 129, (2016).

     

    CHAPTERS IN COLLECTIONS:

     

    5. “Freud on War and Death,” in The Reasons for War, the Chances for Peace. Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud on Violence in the 20th Century. Ofer Ashkenzi and David Bargal (Eds.). Jerusalem: Magnes, 2017. (accepted for publication, in Hebrew)

     

    6. “Writing and Torture in Elias Khoury’s Yalo.” In Hermeneutics ,Culture and Cultural Critique. Edited by Dov Schwartz, Bar Ilan University Press (accepted for publication, in Hebrew).

     

    7.  “IntroductionIn Writing the Holocaust Today: Critical Perspectives on The Kindly Ones. Edited by Liran Razinsky and Aurélie Barjonet (Rodopi, 2012), pp. 7-16.

     

    8. “The Similarity of All Perpetrators in Les Bienveillantes.” In Writing the Holocaust Today: Critical Perspectives on The Kindly Ones. Edited by Liran Razinsky and Aurélie Barjonet (Rodopi, 2012), pp. 47-60.

     

     

    9.  “What Freud did not say: The Absence of Death in Freud’s Writings”. In From the Habsburgs to Central Europe. Edited by Arnold Suppan and Richard Lein, Europa Orientalis, 6, 2008: 239-249.

     

    10.  “On the Literary Genealogy of Les Bienveillantes”. In Les Bienveillantes: The controversy (Notot ha-chesed: Ha-pulmus) [a book accompanying the publication of Les Bienveillantes in Hebrew]. Kineret-Zmora Bitan, 2008 (Hebrew) [shortened translation of 31]

     

    11.  “Death and ambition in Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams,” in Mortality, Dying and Death, Edited by Caroline Edwards and Chandler Haliburton. e-book (ISBN: 978-1-914710-52-3) (The Inter-Disciplinary Press, 2008)(12 pages) < http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/publishing/idp/eBooks/mddindex.html&gt;

     

    12.  “A Godless Jew but Nonetheless a Jew: Sigmund Freud and the Question of Death”. In The Freudian Psychoanalytic Tradition: Between Science and Art (מורשת פרויד: בין מדע לאמנות), Edited by Rachel Blass, Ruth Ginsburg and Zvi Carmei, in The European Forum`s Conference and Lecture Series, 6, Jerusalem, 2007: 48-58 (Hebrew) [translation of 34]

     

     

    ARTICLES:

     

    13. “On the Need for Openness to the Humanities in Psychoanalysis.” Psychoanalytic Psychology (Special issue: “Psychoanalysis and the Humanities”), 33(1) (2016): S56-S74.

     

    14. “Publish and Perish: Freud’s Claim to Literary Fame,” Journal of Modern Literature 39.4 (2016): 1-18.

     

    15. “On Time, Transience and Literary Creation: Freud and Rilke a Century Ago,” Forum for Modern Language Studies 51.4 (2015): 464-479.

     

    16. “A First Encounter with Death,” Dapim LeMehkar Hasifrut 20 (Special issue: Children in Literature and Children Literature (2017):21-35 [Hebrew] (accepted for publication).

     

    17. “‘No longer a minister. Shall I be a worm?’: Grandeur, Renunciation, and Self-destruction in Albert Cohen’s Solal,” Dalhousie French Studies 106 (2015)): 35-45 [published Autumn 2016].

     

    18. “‘Rien qu’un spectateur’ : Image de soi, corporalité et sentiment d’existence dans Le Horla.Studi Francesi 180 (2017): 435-446

     

    19. “Editor’s preface: Writing and Life, Literature and History: On Jorge Semprun.” Yale French Studies, 129 (2016): 1-29.

     

    20. “The Never-Ending Book: On ‘the dream of every writer’ in Jorge Semprun”. Yale French Studies , 129 (2016): 150-169.

     

    21.   “The State of Israel vs. the Humanities,” Theory and Criticism, (תיאוריה וביקורת) 42, 2014, 237-255 [essay in Hebrew]

     

    22.  “Bourreau et victime : Torture et écriture dans Yalo de Elias Khoury.” CRIN (Cahiers de Recherche des Instituts Néerlandais de Langue et de Littérature Française, 58, 2013: 115-125.

     

    23.  “We are All the Same: Max Aue, Interpreter of Evil”. Yale French Studies, 121, 2012: 140-154.

     

    24. “Against Death's Representability: Freud and the Question of Death’s Psychic Presence”. The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 65, 2012: 332-357.

     

    25.  “Not the Witness We Wished For: Jonathan Littell’s Les Bienveillantes (The Kindly Ones) as a Juncture of Excess and Testimony”. Modern Language Quarterly (MLQ), 71(2), 2010:175-196. 

     

    26. “Driving Death Away: Death and Freud’s Theory of the Death Drive”. Psychoanalytic Review. 97, 2010:393-424.

     

    27.  “How to look death in the eyes rather than shunning it: Freud and Bataille”. SubStance. A Review of Theory and Literary Criticism, 38(2), 2009:63-88.

     

    28.  “History, Excess and Testimony in Jonathan Littell’s Les Bienveillantes (The Kindly Ones)”. French Forum, 33(3), 2009, 69-87.

     

    29.  “A Psychoanalytic Struggle with the Concept of Death: A new reading of Freud’s ‘Thoughts for the times on war and death’”. Psychoanalytic Review, 94(3), 2007, 355-88

     

    30.  “On the Strange Case of the Attitude of Psychoanalysis towards Death”. Contemporary Psychoanalysis, 43(1), 2007: 149-164.[a review article]

     

    31.  “‘Un juif tout à fait athée’ … mais juif. Freud, Judaïsme et la question de la mort”. Perspectives, 12, 2005, 255-272.

     

     

    OTHER PUBLICATIONS:

     

    32. “The missing chapter”: Apropos the exhibition Bibliology. Toho Magazin (translated also to English and Arabic): http://tohumagazine.com/he/article/%E2%80%8B%D7%94%D7%A4%D7%A8%D7%A7-%D…

     

    33. “In quest of time: Daniel Widlöcher and the nature of psychic work” in An Anthology of French Psychoanalysis. Edited by Michel Granek, translated by Liran Razinsky. Tel Aviv: Tolaat Sfarim Publishing, 2007 (Hebrew). [3 pages]

     

    34.  “The lacking man”. A review of Julia Kristeva’s Au commencement était l’amour: Psychanalyse et foi. Haaretz, Books supplement. April 2004 (Hebrew).

     

    35. Translation:

    An Anthology of French Psychoanalysis. Edited by Michel Granek, translated by Liran Razinsky. Tel Aviv: Tolaat Sfarim Publishing, 2007 (Hebrew).

     

    CONFERENCES (selection):

     

     

    36. “Some notes on antisemitism and Racism: Sartre and Memmi.” Lecture in the international conference “Sartre’s Réflexions sur la Question Juive 70 Years After, ” The Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism, Hebrew University, December 18-20, 2016.

     

    37. “Everything about Oneself: Totality and Autobiography.” Lecture in the international conference “Le Sens et les sens/Sense and the Senses”, the 2017 International Colloquium on Twentieth and Twenty-First Century French and Francophone Studies, Bloomington, Indiana. April 6 to April 8, 2017.


    38. “Première rencontre avec la mort; Beauvoir, Leiris, Freud et Benjamin.” Lecture in the international workshop “Le souvenir d’enfance (Childhood memories)” (5th Babylone Conference – Psychanalyse & Littérature),  February 24, 2017, Paris.

     

    39. “The Gloomy Journey of the Intellectual: On Critique and Mythologies in Israel Today.”  Lecture in the conference  “Roland Barthes Today.” Tel Aviv University, 29 December, 2015.

     

    40.  “A first encounter with Death. A Theme in Autobiographies.” Lecture in the conference “Key concepts in the study of culture: Annual conference of the Program for Hermeneutics and Cultural Studies”. Bar Ilan University December 1st 2015.

     

    41.  “Soi-même comme un autre : l’altérité de la représentation de soi.” Lecture in the workshop: “ Donnez-moi de vos nouvelles : La figure de l’autre dans le récit .” Joint Project of Universities Paris III, Paris VII, Paris XIII, Lille 3 and Bar Ilan. Paris, September 30- October 1st (invited).

     

    42. “Encountering Death for the First Time. A Theme in Autobiographies.” Lecture in the conference Children Literature and Childhood in Literature, Haifa University 22-24 December 2014.

     

    43. “Publish and Perish: Freud’s Claim to Literary Fame.” Lecture in the international conference “Languages of Psychoanalysis,” LMU, Munich, 4-6 December, 2014 (invited)

     

    44. “Psychoanalysis and Autobiography: Michel Leiris and the Search for One Foundational Moment.” Lecture in the International Conference “Psychoanalysis, Writing, Literature: New encounters”. Bar Ilan University. Joint project  with the University of Paris-Diderot (France). 30 April- 2 May 2014.

     

     

    45.On what I have: Possessions and Autobiography (Perec and Leiris)”. Lecture in the international conference “L’Argent/Money. 20th and 21st Century French and Francophone Studies International Colloquium,” New York, USA, 6-8 March, 2014.

     

    46. “The Never-Ending Book: On ‘the Dream of every writer’ in Jorge Semprun.” Lecture in the international conference “Traces, Fragments, Remains. 20th and 21st Century French and Francophone Studies International Colloquium,” Atlanta, USA, 28-30 March, 2013.

     

    47. “‘No longer a minister. Shall I be a worm?’”:  Grandeur, Compulsion and Self-destruction in Albert Cohen’s Solal”. Lecture in the international conference “Around the Point: The Languages, Literatures, and Cultures of Jews", The Department of Literature of the Jewish People, Bar-Ilan University, Israel, December 17-19, 2012.

     

    48. “Who’s Afraid of the Humanities?”. Lecture in the international workshop/conference “The Future of the Humanities and the Order of Academic Disciplines”. Van Leer Institute, Jerusalem, 4-7 September, 2012.

     

    49. “Quand le bourreau parle : autour des Bienveillantes de Jonathan Littell”. Keynote lecture in the international conference “Histoire et littérature: Le roman historique de Mme Lafayette à Jonathan Littell”. Institut d’études romanes, Unversity of Wroclaw, Poland, September 20-21, 2012 (in French) (Keynote lecture)

     

    50. The Never-Ending Book: On the Dream of Every Writer”. Lecture in the conference “Writing or Life? The work of Jorge Semprun”. Department of Romance Studies, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Program for Hermeneutics and Culture Bar Ilan University, January 26, 2012 (in Hebrew).

     

    51.  “Between Victim and Perpetrator: Torture and Writing in Yalo by Elias Khoury.”  Lecture in the international conference “Trauma Testimony Discourse”. Tel Aviv University and the Van Leer Institute,  February 21-24, 2011.

     

    52. “Entre bourreau et victime : Corps, torture et écriture dans Yalo de Elias Khoury.”  Lecture in the international workshop “Fictions dérangeantes. La parole du salaud,” at the University of Antwerp, December 11, 2010. Organized by the LEA research group (Lire en Europe Aujourd’hui) (in French).

     

    53. “Le Ravissement de Lol V. Stein et la quête d’une vie intérieure”. Lecture in “Instruire, plaire ou émouvoir: La représentation des émotions et des sentiments dans la littérature et les arts (XVIe siècle - XXe siècle)”.

    A one-day conference, Department of French, University of Tel Aviv, June 1, 2010 (in French).

     

    54. “The Similarity of All Perpetrators in Les Bienveillantes”. Lecture in the international Workshop: “The Representation of the Holocaust under Question: Jonathan Littell’s Les Bienveillantes,” at the Center for Jewish Studies, University of Antwerp, December 17, 2009.

     

    55. “The Similarity of All Perpetrators in Les Bienveillantes”. Lecture in the international conference Writing the Holocaust and WW II Today. On Jonathan Littell’s Les Bienveillantes”, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, June 21-23, 2009

     

    56. “What kind of book is this anyway? On history and literature in Jonathan Littell's Les Bienveillantes”.

    Lecture in an international graduate conference “Twentieth-century Literature and the Weight of History”, Columbia University, New York, April 2008.

     

    57. “Death and Ambition in Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams”. Lecture in an international conference “Making Sense of: Dying and Death”, Oxford, UK, July 2007: 

     

    58. “What Freud did not Say: The Absence of Death in Freud’s Writings”. Lecture in an international conference on Austrian culture, University of Minnesota, June 2007.

     

    59. “A Godless Jew but Nonetheless a Jew: Sigmund Freud and the Question of Death”. Lecture in the conference: The Freudian Psychoanalytic Tradition: Between Science and Art, of the European Forum in the Hebrew University, the Center for Austrian Studies, Jerusalem, November 2006 (in Hebrew).

     

    60. “Death and Death Anxiety in Psychoanalysis”. In: International Workshop on Conceptual Research (Research Subcommittee for Conceptual Research of the International Psychoanalytic Association). Frankfurt, Sigmund-Freud-Institut, October 30-November 3.2006

     

    61. “Writing Silence: Death, and the impossibility of writing. Marguerite Duras’ Écrire”. In  Annual conference of the School of Literature, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, March 2006 (in Hebrew).

     

    62. “A godless Jew but nonetheless a Jew: Sigmund Freud and the Question of Death”. Lecture in the international conference: “Scripteurs juifs en marges du Judaïsme, dans les grandes littératures européennes du XXe  siècle”, Jerusalem, October 2004.

     

    INVITED TALKS (selection):

     

    63. “Everything about oneself: Totality and autobiography.” Lecture at the Dept. of Romance Studies, Cornell University. April 13, 2017.

     

    64. “Everything about oneself: Totality and autobiography.” Lecture at the Dept. of French, Yale University. April 11, 2017.

     

    65. “Psychic Life and Fear of Death: A Reexamination of Freud’s Position”(“Seelenleben und Todesangst: Eine Überprüfung der Position Freuds”). Presentation at the Berlin Psychoanalytic Salon, October 21, 2015

     

    66. “Psychic Life and Fear of Death: A Reexamination of Freud’s Position” (“Seelenleben und Todesangst: Eine Überprüfung der Position Freuds”). Presentation at the Wiener Psychoanalytische Akademie, Vienna, October 23, 2015

     

    67. “Silencing Death - A Theoretical Perspective.” Presentation at the Clinic Symposium at the NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy & Psychoanalysis, NYU, March 7, 2014.  

     

    68. “The Perpetrator speaks: Les Bienveillantes Between History and Testimony”. The Center for Jewish Studies, University of Antwerp, December 17, 2009.

     

    69. “Quand le Bourreau parle : Autour des Bienveillantes de Jonathan Littell”. Lecture at the departmental seminar, French Department, Tel Aviv University. 31 Mars 2009.

     

    70. “To Die, Perchance to Dream: Exploring Freud’s The Interpretation of dreams”. Lecture at the departmental seminar, Department of Foreign Literatures and Linguistics, Ben Gurion University of the Negev. 19 January 2009.

     

     

    Last Updated Date : 13/09/2022