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Itamar Even-Zohar

(Picture taken 1993,
Santiago de Compostela)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Address:
Prof. Itamar Even-Zohar
Tel Aviv University
Tel Aviv 69978, ISRAEL

Tel.   +972-3-640-7319
+972-52-859-7314

 

E-mail:
itamarez@tauex.tau.ac.il

WWW sites:
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http://www.tau.ac.il/~itamarez

- http://itamar.even-zohar.com

Itamar Even-Zohar

Short Biographical Description

ITAMAR EVEN-ZOHAR is Professor Emeritus of Culture Research, Tel Aviv University. He has been Porter Chair Professor of Semiotics and Literary Theory (1990-2009), coordinator of the Culture Research Group (1993-1995), and Chairperson of Unit of Culture Research, Tel Aviv University (1995-2007). Elected in April 2014 Honorary Member, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Division of Humanities and the Social Sciences.

His main work has been developing polysystem theory, designed to deal with dynamics and heterogeneity in culture. His field work has concentrated on interactions between various cultures, and viewed from the perspective of the making of cultures, especially of large entities (such as "nations"). He has been engaged in recent years in working on the planning of culture and its relation to the making of such large entities. In earlier stages of his work he contributed to developing a polysystemic theory of translation, i.e., designed to account for translation as a complex and dynamic activity governed by system relations rather than by a-priori fixed parameters of comparative language capabilities. This has subsequently led to studies on literary interference, eventually analyzed in terms of intercultural relations.

His major collections of works are: Papers in Historical Poetics (Tel Aviv, 1978), Polysystem Studies (Durham: Duke UP; =Poetics Today 11:1, 1990), and Papers in Culture Research, an electronic book that includes various updated versions of previous works and new contributions to the theory and study of culture. His works have been published in a large variety of languages.

He was six years Chairman of Department of Poetics, co-founder (1974) and Director of Porter Institute for Poetics and Semiotics (1986-1992), Editor of Poetics Today (1987-1993), Founder and Head of The Shirley and Leslie Porter School of Cultural Studies (1986-1992), Editor of Ha-Sifrut, and co-editor of PTL. He has previously been Bernstein Chair Professor of Translation Theory (1973-1982) and Artzt Chair Professor of History of Literature (1982-1990).

Born in Tel Aviv (1939), Professor Even-Zohar has earned his degrees from the universities of Tel Aviv (B.A., and PhD) and Jerusalem (M.A). He has also studied in Oslo, Copenhagen, and Stockholm. He has stayed, for shorter or longer periods, as a guest professor and and/or scholar in European and American universities and research centers, such as Amsterdam, Paris, Philadelphia, Reykjavík, Quebec City, Louvain, Santiago de Compostela, Santander, St. John's (Newfoundland), Barcelona and Santa Cruz (California). In April 2014, he was elected honorary member of the Humanities and Social Sciences Section of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. He has working knowledge of the following languages: Hebrew (mother tongue), Arabic, English, French, Swedish, Spanish, Norwegian, Danish, Italian, Russian, German, Icelandic, Dutch, Portuguese, and a few other languages.

For a detailed CV click here.