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Na'ama Rokem
Assistant Professor of Modern Hebrew Literature

Na'ama Rokem works on Modern Hebrew and German-Jewish literature. Her interests cover two main areas: 1. genre theory, in particular theory of the novel and of prose; and 2. translation theory, bilingualism, multi-lingual Jewish cultures and the emergence of Hebrew as a Jewish national language. She is currently completing a book manuscript titled Monuments of Prose: Heinrich Heine and the Zionist Remaking of Space, in which she argues that prose - as a figure of thought, a mode and a medium - played an instrumental role in the literary foundations of the Zionist revolution. In her new project - on German-Hebrew bilingualism - she is focusing on poetry, starting with the bilingual drafts of celebrated Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai. 

Rokem is organizing an international conference at the University of Chicago titled "German and Hebrew: Histories of a Conversation," April 15-16, 2010. Link to the conference website coming soon! 

Publications [Selected]

“German-Hebrew Encounters in the Poetry and Correspondence of Paul Celan and Yehuda Amichai” (Under Review)

“The Economy of Description in Sebald and Kafka,” (Hebrew) Forthcoming in The Natural History of Destruction: Essays on W.G. Sebald, ed. Galili Shahar and Michal Ben Horin, Publications of the Center for European Studies, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

“Heine's Monument and the Poetics of Space,” Journal of Modern Jewish Studies, 8.1, March 2009

“Zionism before the Law: The Politics of Representation in Herzl and Kafka,” Germanic Review, 83.4, Fall 2008, 321-342

Conference Participation and Presentations [selected]

“Hegel's World: Prose” American Comparative Literature Association Conference, Long Beach, California, April 2008

“Remember Heine! Bialik’s Detour to the Halakha” German Studies Association Conference, San Diego, October 2007

“Heine's Monument and the Poetics of Space” Association for Jewish Studies Conference, San Diego, December 2006

“Codeword Heine: Beyond Assimilation and Emancipation in German Jewish Culture” German Studies Association Conference, Pittsburg, September 2006

Invited Talks

“Bilingual Poetry,” Franke Humanities Institute, University of Chicago, May 2009

“Kafka, Herzl and the Law”, Kafka Study Day, Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, July 2008

“Appearing in the City of Slaughter: Testimony and Prose in Bialik's Poema”, Department of Comparative Literature, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, May 2008

“Cosmologies of Prose” German Department Colloquium, Stanford University, May 2004

Panels and Workshops Organized [selected]

“German and Hebrew: Histories of a Conversation”, International Conference, University of Chicago, April 2009

“Poetry on the Borders of Hebrew and German”, MLA Annual Convention, San Francisco, December 2008

“The Enduring Power to Provoke: Heinrich Heine Debated in North America, Germany and Israel”, German Studies Association Conference, St. Paul, October 2008

“Between Berlin and Jerusalem: The German Hebrew Conversation Reconsidered” International Workshop at the Division of Languages Cultures and Literatures, Stanford University, May 2008

Honors and Awards [selected]

Spring 2008 Kreitman Postdoctoral Fellowship, Ben Gurion University of the Negev

May 2008    Stanford Department of Comparative Literature, Bradley Rubidge Memorial Dissertation Prize for the Best Dissertation for the Period 2006-2008

2006-2007  Geballe Dissertation Prize Fellowship, Stanford Humanities Center