Marco Di Giulio Professor of Hebrew Language and Literature and Public Health, Program Chair of Judaic Studies
Biography
He has written on disability history in Israel and the rise of the hygiene movement in Mandate Palestine, in addition to the vernacularization of the Hebrew language in the 19th and 20th centuries. Currently, he is working on a book manuscript that takes up notions of capacity to understand how disability operated conceptually and practically in the formative years of the state of Israel. Di Giulio received fellowships from the University of Oxford (UK) and the University of Pennsylvania, and his work has appeared in journals such as Journal of Social History, Jewish Social Studies, The Jewish Quarterly Review, Modern Judaism, The Journal of Israeli History, and other scholarly venues. He chairs the Division on Disability Studies at the Association for Jewish Studies, and serves on the Board of Directors of the Disability History Association. He teaches courses for Judaic Studies, Public Health, and the CNX curriculum.
Education
Research
Grants, Fellowships and Scholarly Appointments
2022 Travel Grant, Association for Israel Studies, 38th annual conference, Bar-Ilan
University, June 27-29
2014-2015 Adjunct Fellow, Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies,
University of Pennsylvania, "New Perspectives on the Origins, Context, and Diffusion
of the Academic Study of Judaism"
2013-2014 Dorset Fellow, Oxford Seminar in Advanced Jewish Studies "On the Word
of a Jew: Oaths, Testimonies, and the Nature of Trust," Oxford Centre for Hebrew and
Jewish Studies, Yarnton Manor, Oxford
2011 Jacob Kabakoff Memorial Grant (travel grant)
2010 Summer Institute for Israel Studies, Schusterman Center for Israel Studies
at Brandeis University
Publications
Publications
MONOGRAPH
Disability in Israel (1920-1960) (under advance contract, McGill-Queen's University
Press)
PEER-REVIEWED PUBLICATIONS
鈥淐ontesting the Politics of British Prosthetic Care: Pain, Nativeness, and the Plight of Palestinian Jewish Amputees in WWII,鈥 in eds. Sara Scalenghe and Beverly Tsacoyianis, Disability History in the Middle East (Bloomsbury Press, forthcoming).
鈥淏eyond Silenced Voices: Gender, Power, and Psychiatric Care in Mandatory Palestine,鈥 All of Us (May 2024).
"Motherhood, Mental Incompetence, and the Denial of Reproductive Autonomy in the Early Years of Israeli Statehood." Journal of Social History (2024): shad087.
鈥淜illing out of Compassion: Disability, Care, and the Value of Life in the Early Decades of Israeli Statehood,鈥 Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 23.2 (2024): 327-347. DOI: 10.1080/14725886.2023.2227611
"The Origins of Israeli Deaf Ethnicity." Jewish Social Studies 27.2 (2022): 144-182
"Negotiations of Jewish Memory: Rome's Holocaust Museum and the Progetto Talmud Babilonese." Annali d'Italianistica 36 (2018): 415-440.
"Protecting the Jewish Throat: Hebrew Accent and Hygiene in the Yishuv," The Journal of Israeli History 35.2 (2016): 1-23.
"Scholarship, Politics, and Jewish Identity in Italian Post-Unification Academia," History of Universities 29.1 (2016): 88-111.
"S. D. Luzzatto's Program for Restoring Jewish Leadership in Hebrew Studies," Jewish Quarterly Review 105.3 (summer 2015): 340-366.
"Resisting Modernity: Jewish Translations of Scripture and Rabbinic Literature in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Italy," Modern Judaism 35.2 (May 2015): 203-232.
"There is no time more pleasurable than when I converse in the sacred language. A plan for the revival of spoken Hebrew in 19th-Century Italy," Hebrew Studies 53 (2012): 203-230.
鈥淢itigating Devices in Biblical Hebrew,鈥 Kleine Untersuchungen zur Sprache des Alten Testaments und seiner Umwelt 8/9 (2008): 33-62.
鈥淧ragmatics as a Theoretical Framework for Interpreting Ancient Hebrew Texts: An Appraisal,鈥
Materia Giudaica XII/1-2 (2007): 51-61
ENCYCLOPEDIA ENTRIES
鈥淓xclamations in Modern Hebrew,鈥 鈥淚taly, Hebrew in (Modern Period),鈥 鈥淒iscourse markers in Biblical Hebrew,鈥 鈥淧ragmatic studies in Biblical Hebrew,鈥 鈥淓xclamations in Biblical Hebrew鈥 in G. Khan (ed.), Encyclopaedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics, Leiden (2013)
Presentations
INVITED TALK
2022 "The Deaf Community in Israel: Israeli Dancer and Poet Tami Assouline in Conversation with Professor Marco Di Giulio." Schusterman Center for Israel Studies, Brandeis University (8 November).
2017 鈥淓xplaining Modernization of Jews in Nineteenth Century Italy.鈥 Center for European
Studies, Harvard University; Jews in Modern Europe Study Group.
CONFERENCE PRESENTATION
2023 鈥淭aking the Wheel: Automobility and the Israeli Disabled Veteran Community.鈥 AJS 55th Annual Conference (17鈥19 December).
2023 鈥淐ontesting the Politics of British Prosthetic Care: Pain, Nativeness, and the Plight of Palestinian Jewish Amputees in WWII.鈥 39th Annual Conference of the Association for Israel Studies (26鈥28 June)
2023 鈥淐ontesting the Politics of British Prosthetic Care: Pain, Nativeness, and the Plight of Palestinian Jewish Amputees in WWII.鈥 Online Conference on Histories of Disability and Emotions, Leuven Centre for Health Humanities, organizers Pieter Verstraete, Sara Scalenghe, and Ninon Dubourg (13鈥15 June)
2022 "The Will to Work: Disabled War Veterans and the Israeli Prosthetics Industry." Association for Jewish Studies 54th Annual Conference, Boston (18鈥20 December)
2021 鈥'Mental Retardation', Parent Advocacy, and the Need for Undisrupted Domesticity in the Early Decades of Israeli Statehood." Association for Jewish Studies 53rd Annual Conference, Chicago (19鈥21 December)
2018 "What Does a Healthy Zionist Look Like? Medical Rationing and the Redefinition of Disability in the Yishuv." Association for Jewish Studies 50th Annual Conference, Boston (16鈥18 December)
2017 鈥淭he Society for the Hard of Hearing and the Beginnings of Deaf Activism in the Yishuv.鈥 Association for Jewish Studies 49th Annual Conference, Washington, DC (17鈥19 December)
2016 鈥淗ebrew Language and Hygiene in the Yishuv.鈥 32nd Annual Conference of the Association for Israel Studies (18-20 June)
2014 Roundtable 鈥淥n the Word of a Jew: The Problem of Trust in Jewish History.鈥 Association for Jewish Studies 46th Annual Conference", Baltimore, MD (14鈥16 December)
2014 鈥淛ewish 四虎影院 and Cultural Politics in Post-Unification Italy.鈥 10th Congress of the European Association for Jewish Studies, Paris (20鈥24 July)
2013 "Trustworthy Educators in a New Nation: Jewish 四虎影院 in Post-Unification Italy." Oriental Institue, Oxford University, UK (4 December)
2012 "Reclaiming Hebrew Studies: Language and National Pride in Ninenteenth-Century Italian Scholarship." American Association for Italian Studies 32nd Annual Conference, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC (3-5 May)
2011 "National Implications in the Linguistic Theory of S. D. Luzzatto." AJS 43rd annual conference, Washington, DC (18-20 December)
2011 "Instructing youngsters to speak the pure tongue today in an easy and pleasurable manner: Hebrew schoolbooks in 19th-Century Italy." NAPH Conference on Hebrew Language, Literature and Culture, University of Maryland in College Park (28-30 June)
2011 鈥淲hen Dialog Met Grammar: Hebrew Learning in 19th-century Italy.鈥 The American Association for Italian Studies. XXXI Conference, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh (7-9 April)
2011 "Hebrew Revivalist Tendencies in 19th Century Italy," Forging Linguistic Identities, Towson University, Towson (17-19 March)
2010鈥溾機onversing in the sacred language is pleasurable to me 鈥︹ A 19th-Century Grammar and the Italian Contribution to the Hebrew Language Revival.鈥 AJS 42nd annual conference, Boston (19-21 December)
Professional Service
Disability History Association, Board of Directors (2023鈥2025)
Co-chair of the Division on Disability Studies of the Association for Jewish Studies (2023-)
Manuscript reviewer: Journal of Israeli History, AJS Review, Journal of Jewish Identities,
Prooftexts: A Journal of Jewish Literary History, Italian National Agency for the Evaluation of the University and Research Systems (ANVUR)
Course Information