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Dr. Tammy Amiel Houser, Senior Lecturer

Contact Info

The Open University of Israel Department of Literature, Language and the Arts One University Road P.O.B. 808 Ra’anana 4353701, Israel
Office:972-9-778-1801 Email: tammyam@openu.ac.il

Additional Information

My CRIS profile

Areas of Interest
  • Ethical Criticism; Contemporary Anglophone Fiction.
  • The moral imaginary of neoliberalism; Empathy; Feminist theories of care.

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2008
PhD (with distinction), Tel Aviv University, The School of Cultural Studies
Title of Doctoral Dissertation: “Fictional Otherness: Ethics and Literary Criticism”
2001
MA (summa cum laude), Tel Aviv University, The Department of Poetics and Comparative Literature
1997
LLB (magna cum laude), Tel-Aviv University, The Faculty of Law
2017-
Senior Lecturer
The Open University of Israel, Department of Literature, Language and the Arts
2012-2017
Lecturer  
The Open University of Israel, Department of Literature, Language and the Arts
2010-2012
Visiting Lecturer
The Open University of Israel, Department of Literature, Language and the Arts
2004-2011
Adjunct Lecturer, Tel Aviv University, Department of Literature
2004-2009
Tutor and Course Coordinator, Open University of Israel
Since 2023
Chair, Department of Literature, Language and the Arts, Open University of Israel.
Since 2020
Supervisor of the music program, Open University of Israel.
2014-2018
Chair - Literature, Language and the Arts Subcommittee of Open University's Senate
Since 2012
Member, the steering committee of the MA program in Cultural Studies, Open University of Israel

Post Doctoral Supervision

2017-2018 - Dr. Maya Michaeli. Post-Doc Fellowship. The Open University of Israel

MA Supervision

In Progress - Tom Kless. MA program in Cultural Studies (with Dr. Einat Baram-Eshel)

2020-2022 - Gali Dar. MA program in Cultural Studies (with Dr. Liat Steir Livny)

2017-2021 - Rinat Bergel. MA program in Cultural Studies (with Dina Haruvi)

2016-2018 - Anat Bratman-Elhalel. MA program in Cultural studies (with Dr. Liat Steir Livny)

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PhD (2008):

 “Fictional Otherness: Ethics and Literary Criticism.” (Hebrew) ;
Tel Aviv University, The School of Cultural Studies      

 

MA (2001): 

 “Masculine/Feminine Bildung: A Critical Study of the Bildungsroman
and its Representation in George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss.”
(Hebrew)
Tel Aviv University, Department of Poetics & Comparative Literature
 

Amiel Houser T. The Neoliberal Imagination in Contemporary Literature: A Study of Empathy in a Time of Global Crisis. Routledge, 2024.

Amiel Houser T. Critical Perspectives on the Coming-of-Age Novel: George Eliot's Feminist Challenge (Hebrew).
‘MIGDARIM’ (Genders), Hakibbuz Hameuchad and The Porter Institute for Poetics and Semiotics Tel Aviv University, 2016.

Venues of Feminist Thinking: A Reader. (Hebrew). Eds. N. Yanay, T. Elor, O. Lubin, H. Nave and T. Amiel Houser. Raanana: Open University, 2007.

Literary and Cultural Theory: Contemporary Schools of Thought, Further Steps. (Hebrew). Written by H. Herzig. Scientific editing by T. Amiel Houser. Raanana: Open University, 2005.

 “Selected Great Works of Western Literature.” A new course composed of video lectures by diverse lecturers + a study guide (Hebrew, course 10778).

Theories and Approaches in Culture Research (Reader + Study Guide). Written by Amiel Houser, T., Hirsch, D., Kedem, N. and Meiri S. Raanana: Open University 2009. (Hebrew, course 14205).

 An Introduction to Gender Studies (Study Guide). Written by Amiel Houser Amiel Houser, T. Raanana: Open University 2006. (Hebrew, course 10680).

 Literary and Cultural Theory: Contemporary Schools of Thought, Further Steps. Written by H. Herzig. Scientific Editing by T. Amiel Houser. Raanana: Open University, 2005 (Hebrew, course 10734).

 Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory. By Barry, P. Trans, Herzig, H. Scientific Editing Amiel Houser, T. Raanana: Open University, 2004 (course 10734).

Amiel Houser T. “Reading Fiction with Levinas.”  in: Levinas and Literature. Eds. Cools A. and M. Fagenblat. De Gruyter, Berlin, (Perspectives on Jewish Texts and Contexts, Series Editor V. Liska). 2020, pp. 239-255 https://www.degruyter.com/view/title/543677

Amiel Houser T. “The Ethics of Care in Zadie Smith's 'The Embassy of Cambodia'.” Critical Approaches to Literature: Moral. Ed. Robert C. Evans. NY: Salem Press, 2017. 197-213.

 Amiel Houser T. “Subjectivity and Hospitality: Emmanuel Levinas and Margaret Atwood.” (Hebrew). Intertextuality in Literature and Culture. Eds. M. Gluzman and O. Lubin. Tel Aviv: Hakibbuz Hameuchad and The Porter Institute for Poetics and Semiotics, 2012. 259-300.

 Amiel Houser T. “Introduction” (Hebrew). Venues of Feminist Thinking: A Reader. Eds. N. Yanay, T. Elor, O. Lubin, H. Nave and T. Amiel Houser. Raanana: Open University, 2007.

Amiel Houser, T. “Ali Smith’s Companion Piece and the Value of Close Reading.” Forthcoming in: C21 Literature: Journal of 21st-century Writings, vol 11.3 (2024) )  https://doi.org/10.16995/c21.10818

Amiel Houser, T. “The Neoliberal Mobilization of Empathy in the Era of the Financial Crisis:  A Case-Study.”  Law, Culture and the Humanities 18.3 (2022): 739–764. https://doi.org/10.1177/1743872119843608

“The Rise and Fall of Empathy in an Era of Financial Crisis: Rethinking the Neoliberal Imaginary.”  Journal for Cultural Research. Advance online publication 14 September 2020:  https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/4VQ4H9KTEKN3Q7ZBBMFB/full?target=10.1080/14797585.2020.1820305

 “Tragedy in Ian McEwan’s The Children Act.” Genre: Forms of Discourse and Culture 51.1 (2018): 53-79. https://doi.org/10.1215/00166928-4365106

“Zadie Smith’s NW: Unsettling the Promise of Empathy.”   Contemporary Literature 58.1 (2017): 116 – 148. doi:10.3368/cl.58.1.116.

“Confronting the Dogs of War: Violence and Caregiving in Ian McEwan's Black Dogs and David Grossman's To the End of the Land.” JNT: Journal of Narrative Theory 46.3 (2016): 366-394. doi:10.1353/jnt.2016.0020.

“'The Ugly Duckling' and The Mill on the Floss: A Fairytale Rewriting of the Bildungsroman.” Women Studies: An inter-disciplinary journal 45.6 (2016): 549-569. doi: 10.1080/00497878.2016.1194720.

“Against Empathy: Levinas and Ethical Criticism in the 21st Century” (co-author with Adia Mendelson-Maoz). JLT - Journal of Literary Theory 8.1 (2014): 199 – 218. doi: 10.1515/jlt-2014-0009.

“Margaret Atwood's Feminist Ethics of Gracious Housewifery”, Partial Answers: Journal of Literature and The History of Ideas 11.1 (2013): 109 – 132. doi: 10.1353/pan.2013.0008

“The Ethics of Otherness in Ian McEwan's Saturday”, Connotations: A Journal for Critical Debate 21.1 (2011/12): 128-57.
https://www.connotations.de/article/tammy-amiel-houser-the-ethics-of-otherness-in-ian-mcewans-saturday/

“The Intertextual Thread: A New Cultural Unit in Hypertext” (with Benari, M., Ben-Porat, Z., Biberman, E., Chudnovsky, L., and Segal, E).  Leonardo Electronic Almanac 12.9 (2004). https://www.leoalmanac.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/LEA-v12-n9.pdf

Areas of Interest
Ethical criticism; Contemporary Anglophone fiction; The moral imaginary of neoliberalism; Empathy; Feminist theories of care.

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2018 – 2019    Visiting Scholar, The Faculty of English and Wolfson College, Cambridge University, UK​

2024-2028
Amiel Houser T. The Contemporary Protest Novel. The Israeli Science Foundation (ISF) grant no. 265/24.

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  • Academic Supervisor of BA courses in Literature:

  • “Selected Great Works of Western Literature.”
    “The Languages of Arts: Aesthetic and Cultural Aspects”
    “Modern Literary and Cultural Theory: An Introduction”
    “Poetics of Narrative Fiction”
    “Landmarks in Western Literary Criticism”
    “The Canaanite Group: Literature and Ideology”

     

  • Academic Supervisor of MA courses in Cultural Studies:

  • “Theories and Approaches in Cultural Studies”
    “Gender: Culture and Identity”
    “Thesis Seminar for Academic Writing” - teaching every second year.

     

  • 2004 – 2009:  Tutor and Course Coordinator:
  • “Theories and Approaches in Cultural Studies”
    “Introduction to Gender Studies”
    “Israeli Fiction in the 1980s”
    “Modern Literary and Cultural Theory: An Introduction”
    “The Canaanite Group: Literature and Ideology”
  • 2004 – 2011 Taught Courses:

  • “Literature and Immorality”
    “A Portrait of the Human as a Young Man: The Genre of the Bildungsroman 18th to 21th Century”
    “Western World Literature Masterpieces – Antiquity” (together with Dr. Orly Lubin)
    “A Seminar for Teaching Assistants in an Introduction to Literature”

  • Tutor:
  • “Introduction to Literary Theory”
    “Canonical Novels”
    “Guided Reading in Cultural Studies”
  • 1998 – 2003 Teacher: “Guided Reading in Philosophical and Theoretical Texts”, “Introduction to Cultural studies”