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Inbal Ofer, Associate Professor

Prof. Inbal Ofer
Contact Info

The Open University of Israel Department of History, Philosophy and Judaic Studies 1 University Road, P. O. Box 808, Raanana 4353701
Office:972-547-573666 Email:inbalof@openu.ac.il

Areas of Interest
  • Contemporary Spanish history
  • Urban social movements
  • Gender and Fascism

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Since 2017
Associate professor, Modern European history, Department of History, Philosophy and Judaic Studies, The Open University of Israel
2010-2017
Senior lecturer, Modern European history, Department of History, Philosophy and Judaic Studies, The Open University of Israel
2007-2009
Visiting faculty, Modern European History, Department of History, Philosophy and Judaic Studies, The Open University of Israel
2022 to the present
Member of the OUI's Research Authority Steering Committee. 
2020 to the present
Joint Head of the Gender Studies Program, The Open University of Israel.
2017-2020
Head of the MA program in History, The Open University of Israel
2018-2019
Chairwoman of the Senior Faculty Council, The Open University of Israel.
2014-2017
Quality assurance coordinator for the Open University - CHE Israel.

2017-2020 - ISF (Israeli Science Foundation), "Urban Social Movements and the Unbounded City: The Case of the Spanish Citizens' Movement (1975-1982)" (455/17).

2013 - ISF (Israeli Science Foundation) International Workshop titled "Measuring the Immeasurable: Social Movements and Changes in the Conceptual Understandings and Practices of Citizenship".

2010-2013 - ISF (Israeli Science Foundation), "From a shantytown to a barrio: democratization through the eyes of a Madrid neighborhood (Orcasitas 1956-1986)" (54/10).

2021: Member of the Council for Social Sciences and the Humanities, ISERD. 

2020 to the present: Co-editor of Zamanim (A Historical Quarterly).

2020 to the present: Member of the editorial board of Segle XX (Revista Catalana d'história Centre d'Estudis Històrics Internacionels). 

2018-2021: Member of the editorial board of Lamda Scholarship (The Open University of Israel Press).

2021; 2017: Evaluator for the Israel Science Foundation (Humanities).

2023 - : Research group "Genero y nación franquista. Perspectivas transnacionales e interseccionales" (Proyecto 1667141082-141-82-4-22, Universidad de Valencia)

2022 to the present: Research group "Postwars: Spain 1939 – Germany 1945. A Comparative Approach". PIs: Ursula Hennigfeld & Inbal Ofer (Heinrich Heine Universität, Düsseldorf - OUI). This group applied for funding of the German Research Foundation in September 2022.   

2022 to the present: “Latin American–Southern European Political Knowledge: Actors, Networks and Circulation, 1940s–1980s” (PK CANALS). PIs: Gerardo Leibner (Tel Aviv University), Eugenia Palieraki (CY Cergy Paris University), Raffaele Nocera (Universita degli Studi di Napoli l’Orientale), Inbal Ofer (The Open University of Israel). This groups applied for an ERC Synergy grant 2022. 

2019 to the present: Member of the Urban Historical Association. 

2018-2019: Member of the Research Group "Mujeres de Ley del tardofranquismo a los inicios de la transición a la democracia" (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid).  

2016-2019: Member of the research group “Discursos, identidades y políticas de género en la derecha española y la Dictadura de Franco” (Project HAR2015-63624-P, Universidad de Zaragoza).  

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Claiming the City/Contesting the State: Squatting, Community Formation and Democratization in Spain (1955 – 1986), The Cañada Blanch Series: Studies on Contemporary Spain, LSE (London: Routledge, 2017).

 Taking Citizenship Personally: Social Movements and Spain’s Transition to Democracy, co-authored by T. Groves, I. Ofer, N. Townson, A. Herrera, Palgrave Studies in the History of Social Movements (London: Palgrave, 2017).

 Señoritas in Blue: The Making of a Female Political Elite in Franco's Spain. The National Leadership of the Sección Femenina de la Falange (1936-1977), Sussex Studies in Spanish History (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2009, Second edition paperback, 2010).

 Performing Citizenship: Social Movements around the Glob, edited by I. Ofer & T. Groves, Series Advances in Democratic Theory (London: Routledge, 2015).

Special Issue, Journal of Urban History: The Production of Space in Times of Crisis: Historicizing the Dialogue between Planners and the Users of Space (forthcoming 2024). Co-edited with Dr. Assaf Mond. 

"Spatial Crisis and the Experimental Production of Urban Space in Franco's Spain: The History of Madrid's Poblados Dirigidos", Journal of Urban History (forthcoming, 2024).

 "¿Intelectuales orgánicas? Las asociaciones de amas de casa y el debate en torno al papel de las mujeres en su calidad de consumidoras y ciudadanas activas (España 1963-1982)", Rivista Spagna Contemponea, vol. 55 (2019), pp. 55-81.

 "Frontline Women: Space and Gender in the Spanish Civil War", RUHM (Revista Universitaria de Historia Militar), 17 (13) (2018), pp. 159-178.

 "Body of the Nation: Gender, Class and the Consolidation of Physical Education Policies for Women in Francoist Spain", Journal of Iberian and Latin American Literary and Cultural Studies, vol. 4.4 (2017) special issue (Sport, Identity, and Nationalism in the Hispanic World), pp. 35-56. 

 "Teresa. Revista para todas las mujeres? Gender versus Class in the Sección Femenina's Transition to Democracy", Historia y Política, 37 (2017), 121-146.

 "Mobility of the Defeated: Internal Migration and Social Advancement in a Post-Civil War Society", Mobilities (2016), pp. 1-13.

 R. Rein & I. Ofer, "Becoming Brigadistas: Jewish Volunteers from Palestine in the Spanish Civil War", European History Quarterly, vol. 46(1) (2016) pp. 92-112.

 "The Genealogy of a Gender Identity: The Sección Femenina de la Falange and the Image of the National Syndicalist Woman", European History Quarterly, vol. 39(4) (2009), pp. 583-605.

 "La Guerra de Agua: Notions of Morality, Respectability and Community in a Madrid Neighborhood", Journal of Urban History, vol. 35(2) (2008), pp. 220-235.

 “Am I that Body? Sección Femenina de la FETand the Struggle for the Institution of Physical Education and Competitive Sports for Women in Franco’s Spain”, Journal of Social History, Vol.39(4) (2006), pp. 989-1010.

 “La legislación de género de la Sección femenina de la FET. Acortando distancias entre la política de élite y la de masas”, Historia y Política, Vol.15(1) (2006), pp. 219-242.

 “Historical Models – Contemporary Identities: the Sección Femenina of the Spanish Falange and its Redefinition of Term “Femininity”, Journal of Contemporary History, Vol.40(4) (2005), pp. 663-674.

 “Fragmented Autobiographies: a Style of Writing or Self-Perception? The Case of Pilar Primo de Rivera”, IberoAmericana, Vol. 9 (2003), pp. 37-51.

"Rethinking the Relationship between Women, Gender and Fascism: Verticality as a Mediating Concept" in A. Germer & J. Rückert (eds.), Gendering Fascism (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming in 2023).  

"From laa 11 de Basauri to Spain's Abortion Law: Women Activists, Feminist Agendas and the Printed Press in Times of Political Transition", in J. Freeland & C. von Hodenberg (eds.), Mass Media and the History of Feminisms in the Twentieth Century in Europe and Beyond (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming in 2023). 

 "Women and the Spanish Civil War: The Radical Months" in R. Rein & J. M. Thomàs (eds.), Spain 1936: Year Zero (Brighton: Sussex University Press, 2018), pp. 93-113.

 "Producing the Space of Democracy: Spatial Practices and Representations of Urban Space in Spain's Transition to Democracy" in S. Kingma, V. Wasserman & K. Dale (eds.), Organizational spaces and beyond: The significance of Henri Lefebvre for organizational studies (London: Routledge, 2018), pp. 261-283.

 "Nation and Body: Physical Culture and Politics in Francoist Spain and Fascist Italy (1919 – 1945)" in B. Martínez del Fresno & B. Vega Pichaco (eds.), Dance Ideology and Power in Francoist Spain (Turnhout: Brespols, 2018), pp. 3 -30.

 "Pilar Primo de Rivera", in A. Shubert & J. Alvarez Junco (eds.), A New History of Modern Spain: Chronologies, Themes, Individuals, (London: Bloomsbury, 2017), pp. 465 -472.

I. Ofer & R. Rein, "La Transformación de los Voluntarios Judíos de Palestina en Brigadistas de la Guerra Civil Española", in J. M. Thomas Andreu & R. Rein (eds.) Guerra Civil y Franquismo. Una Perspectiva Internacional (Zaragoza: Prensa de la Universidad de Zaragoza, 2016), pp. 19 – 46.

 “Right to the City”: Squatting, Squatters and Urban Change in Franco’s Spain", in F. Anders & A. Sedlmaier (eds.), Public Goods vs. Economic Interests: Historical Perspectives on Squatting (London: Routledge, 2016), pp. 150-169.

 "The Concept of Mobility in Migration Processes: The Subjectivity of Moving towards a "Better Life" in M. Fernandez Montes & M. C. La Barbera (eds.) Negotiating Identity in Migration Processes, (Springer, 2014), pp. 149-160.

 "El género de la ciudadanía: protestas callejeras y la Transición Española a la democracia (MADRID 1975-1979)", in I. Saz Campos (ed.), Nacionalismo Español en el siglo XX (Valencia: Prensa de la Universidad de Valencia, 2012), pp. 185-206.

 “Whose Body is it Anyway? Physical Education for Women and Body Perceptions in Franco’s Spain”, in Raanan Rein & Tamar Groves (eds.), Outside the Bullring: Spain in the Twentieth Century (Tel Aviv: Ramot, 2005), pp. 175-186.

Class, Space and Urban Development: Madrid 1860-1936, Cuadernos de Historia Contemporánea, vol. 39 (2017), pp. 339-344.  

Review essay on Los barrios bajos de Madrid, 1880-1936 by L. Díaz Simón; Madrid sinfonía de una metrópolieuropea by S. de Miguel Salanova; Las nuevas clases medias urbanas. Transformación y cambio social en España, 1900-1936, J. M. Beascoechea & L. E. Otero (Eds.)  

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  • October, 2020: Online workshop The Hidden Knowledge in Audio and Video Collections (OUI). Paper titled: "Silences, Rhythms and Intonations: The Sub-Text of Oral History Sources". 
  • March, 2020: TORCH Research Seminar: Conversations in Identity, Nationhood and Ethnicity (Cambrifge). Paper titled: "Re-thinking Gendered Leadership Models in Franco's Spain: The Case of Pilar Primo de Rivera". 
  • "Spanish Modernism Gone to Latin America: Town Planning from the Charter of Athens (1933) to the Charter of Machu Picchu (1977)", Latin America and Europe Multiple connections in the years of the cold war (1959-1989), III International Conference Political A.T.L.A.S., University of Naples “L'Orientale”, Italy, 6-7 November 2019.
  •  "Autogestión and the Spanish Citizens' Movement: Initiative for a Different Kind of Democracy", Conference "An Era of Value Change: The Seventies in Europe", the German Historical Institute London (GHIL) 14-16 March 2019, London, UK.
  •  "Intelectuales orgánicas? Las asociaciones de amas de casa y el debate en torno al papel de las mujeres en su calidad de consumidoras y ciudadanas activas (España 1963-1982)", Workshop "Mujeres de Ley: del tardofranquismo a los inicios de la transición a la democracia", 12 de noviembre, 2018, Universidad Carlos III, Madrid, Spain.
  •  "The Space, which Allows Contradictions to be Reconciled: Jewish Volunteers in the International Brigades en Route from Palestine to Spain", Jews in Radicalized Spaces, Kaplan Center for Jewish History, University of Cape Town, South Africa, 28-30 March, 2017.
  •  "Frontline Women: Space, Gender the Spanish Civil War”, Spain 1936: Year Zero, International Workshop, Tel Aviv University, 16-17 January, 2017.
  • "Alternative Visions of Democracy: Teachers and Neighbors Associations during the Spanish Transition to Democracy", T. Groves & I. Ofer, 11th European Social Science History Conference, Universidad de Valencia, 1-2 April, 2016. 
  •   "Women in Transition: Gender, Class and Space in Teresa (Revista para todas las Mujeres)", Research meeting, Project HA 2012-32539 (financed by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness), Universidad de Granada, 15-16 October 2015.
  •  "Squatters versus Urban Planners: Claiming the City / Contesting the State in Spain (1955‐ 1986)". Cañada Blanch Center for Hispanic Studies, London School of economics, 26 November, 2015.
  •  "Becoming Comrades: The Experience of Jewish Volunteers from Palestine to Spain and Back”, The Franco Regime in the International Scene, International Workshop, Tel Aviv University, 5-6 November, 2014.
  •  "Right to the City / Right to the State: Squatters' Associations and the Negotiation of Citizenship (Spain, 1971 – 1986)", Measuring the Immeasurable: Social Movements and Changes in the Conceptual Understandings and Practices of Citizenship, International Research Workshop, Zichron Ya'akov, August, 2013.
  •  "My Shack, My Home – Identity Formation and Home-Making on the Outskirts of Madrid (1955-1986)", International Conference on Home and Identity: The Private – Public Nexuses, RomaTre University, Rome, 2012.
  •  "Somos vecinos, no propietarios". The Concept of "Community of Neighbors" in the Struggle against Forced Eviction, Cities & Societies in Comparative Perspective, 11th International Conference on Urban History, Prague, 2012.
  •  "The Concept of Mobility in Migration Processes: The Subjectivity of Moving towards a "Better Life", Negotiating Identity in Migration Processes, International Conference CSIC, Madrid, 2011. 
  •  "El género de la ciudadanía: protestas callejeras y la Transición Española a la democracia (MADRID 1975-1979)", La identidad nacional española en el siglo XX: discursos y prácticas, Universidad de Valencia, 2010.
  •  “Street Knowledge”: Community Needs and Urban Planning", City & Society in European History, 10th International Conference on Urban History, Ghent, 2010.
  •  “Spanish Feminine Thought Meets Western Feminist Thought: El Congreso Internacional de la Mujer (Madrid, 1970)”, Annual meeting of WISPS (Society for Women in Spanish and Portuguese Studies), Cambridge University, 2004.
  • “Am I that Body? The Promotion of Female Physical Education and Competitive Sports in Francoist Spain and the Emergence of New Bodily Perceptions”, Annual meeting of The Society for Spanish and Portuguese Studies, UNED, Madrid, 2003.
  •  “Models for Feminine Activism: the Feminine Section of the Spanish Falange between Marie Curie and Maria Paz Unciti”, Annual meeting of The Society for Spanish and Portuguese Studies, University of Georgia, 2002
  •  3-4 November 2019, "Women, Civic Activism and Social Change: Beteen the Global North and South" (together with Dr. Noga Efrati), Research workshop co-sponsored by the Israeli Historical Society, Zichron Ya'akov. 
  •  4-7 April 2018, "Professional Advocacy, Social Movements and Democratization"  (togather with Dr. Tamar Groves), 12th European Social Science History Conference Belfast, Northern Ireland (for the Politics, Citizenship and Nations Network).
  •  28-29 May, 2017: Organizer (together with prof. G. Miron) of a research workshop on Lived, Perceived and Conceived Space: Social Power Relations and the Spatial Turn, Zichron Ya'akov.
  •  4– 6 September, 2014: Organizer (together with Dr. T. Pinheiro) "Memories and Media of Migration in the 20th Century". 6th GERMAN‐ISRAELI FRONTIERS OF HUMANITIES SYMPOSIUM.
  • July – August 2013: Organizer (together with Dr. Tamar Groves) Measuring the Immesurable. Social Movements and Changes in the Conceptual Understanding of Citizenship, of an international, multydiscipluinary workshop. The workshop was funded by the ISF.