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Dr. Dana Kaplan, Senior Lecturer

Contact Info

The Open University The Dorothy De Rothschild Campus One University Road P.O.B. 808 Ra’anana 43107, Israel
Office:972-9-7781179 Email:danaka@openu.ac.il

Additional Information

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2015
PhD. - Department of Sociology and Anthropology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
2001
MA - summa cum laude. Culture Research, Tel-Aviv University.  
1995
BA - magna cum laude, Communication and General and Comparative Literature, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. 

2015-2016 - Visiting fellow, Sociology Department (Centre for Culture and the Creative Industries), City University of London

2014-2015 - Ginsberg postdoctoral fellow & visiting fellow, Sociology Department (Centre for Culture and the Creative Industries), City University of London

2013 - Visiting scholar, Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality, New York

2024-2025
Visiting research fellow, Institute for Advanced Israel Studies fellowship at the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies at Brandeis University
7-8/2024
Visiting scholar, Cambridge University, Department of Sociology
2022-2023
Visiting Scholar - University of Michigan, Department of Sociology
2022
Senior Lecturer - The Open University of Israel, Department of Sociology, Political Science, and Communication and the Program for Cultural Studies. 
2021
Senior taeching faculty - The Open University of Israel, Department of Sociology, Political Science, and Communication. 
2019-2022
Senior fellow - The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mandel Scholion Interdisciplinary research center in the Humanities and Jewish Studies 
2015-
Teaching faculty - Middlebury College Language Schools, School of Hebrew 
2001-2022
Teaching faculty (coordinator) - The Open University of Israel. Department of Sociology, Political Science, and Communication. 
2023
Best Article Award (second place), Israeli Sociological Society
2019
ISSR (International Society for the Sociology of Religion) best article award (with R. Werczberger)
2015
Ginsberg postdoctoral fellowship, The Hebrew University.
2013
Shaine doctoral scholarship, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, The Hebrew University
2011 - 2014
Doctoral fellowship, The Mandel Scholion Interdisciplinary Research Center in the Humanities and Jewish Studies, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
2011
The Shaine award for best article, The Department of Sociology and Anthropology, The Hebrew University (NIS 2,000)
2010
The Brenda Danet scholarship, Departments of Sociology and Communication, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
2008 - 2012
President's Doctoral Scholarship, The Hebrew University

2024-2028 - Digital Sexual Conduct: Towards a Theory of PostSituational Digisexual Sociality, Israel Science Foundation (2191/24), co-PI (with Y. Lahav-Raz), NIS 1,000,000         

2024 - Towards an environmental sociology of air: non-sustainable lifestyles, co-PI (with M. Lavi-Neemen and V. Chernov), Environment and Sustainability Research Center, the Open University of Israel

2024 - When beauty talks: Implementing AI tools for a gender-based longitudinal paralinguistic micro-analysis of a video archive, co-PI (with V. Silber-Varod), The Open University of Israel’s Research Authority, NIS 40,000

2024 - Digital Sexual Conduct: Towards a Computational Analysis of Post-Situational Digisexual Sociality, co-PI (with Y. Lahav Raz), the DHSS Hub

2023 - Social and scientific aspects of wood burning residential heating practices, co-PI, Ministry of Environment Protection, NIS 93,750 

2023 - Visual citizenship, PI, The Open University of Israel’s Research Authority, NIS 40,000

2022 - Plastic Surgery in Israel, PI, The Open University of Israel’s Research Authority, NIS 40,000

2021 - Writing Scholarship, Beauty and Class in Israel under Neoliberalism, The Open University of Israel's Research Authority 

2020-2022 - Beauty and Sexual Abuse during the Holocaust: A Resource for Survival and an Expedient for Destruction, co-PI, The Open University of Israel’s Research Authority, NIS 40,000

2020-2022 - Poverty and Me: Everyday Life of Women Living in Poverty, co-PI (with G. Levy), The Open University Research Authority, NIS 40,000

2019-2022 - Setting Tables: Eating and Social Boundaries, co-PI, Mandel Scholion Interdisciplinary research center in the Humanities and Jewish Studies, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

2018-2021 - Class(ic) Beauty: How social class and beauty intersect in Israel, PI, Israel Science Foundation, NIS 375,000

2018-2020 - Israeli Judaism or Israeli Jewishness? Rebranding Jewish Renewal in Israel, co-PI, The Open University Research Authority, NIS 20,000

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PhD dissertation  Recreational Sexuality, Food, and New Age Spirituality: A Cultural Sociology of Middle-Class Distinctions. 2015, pp. 215, English, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, supervised by Eva Illouz (1 citation).

MA thesis Upper Middle-class Weddings in Israel: Culture Production, Repertoires and Tastes. 2001, pp. 229, Hebrew, Tel Aviv University, supervised by Gadi Algazi (4 citations, grade: 100).

a) Kaplan, Dana and Illouz, Eva. (2022). What is Sexual Capital? Cambridge: Polity Press.

In other languages:
b) Kaplan, Dana and Illouz, Eva (2021) Was ist sexuelles Kapital? Berlin: Suhrkamp (2 citations)
c) Illouz, Eva and Kaplan, Dana (2020) El Capital Sexual en la Modernidad Tardía. Barcelona: Herder Editorial. (11 citations)
d) Illouz, Eva and Kaplan, Dana (2020) Il capitale sessuale. Roma: Castelvecchi.
e) Illouz, Eva and Kaplan, Dana (2020) Il capitale sessuale, Roma: Castelvecchi
* Rights sold to Éditions du Seuil (French), Ekdoseis tou Eikostou Protou (Greek), Ginkgo (Shanghai) Book Co. (Chinese), Daidalos (Swedish).

Wasserman, Natan; Weiss, Zeev; Furstenberg, Yair and Kaplan, Dana (Eds). (in progress). Setting Tables: Commensality, Social Boundaries and Inter-Cultural Exchange. Magness Press (Hebrew). 

Kaplan Dana., Levy, Gal., Buzhish Sasson, Heli., Biton, avigail and Kohan-Benlulu, Riki. (2022). A Crisis of (Ir)regularity: Self documentation of families in poverty in Israel. Journal of Poverty and Social Policy (online first). 

Kaplan, D., Levy, G., Biton,A., Kohan-Benlulu, R., & Buzhish-Sasson H. (2022). 'Ain't I human being?': Self-documentation of living in poverty in the face of the abandoning state. Journal of Poverty and Social Justice, 30(3). 210-229

*Israeli Sociological Society best article award 2023, second place.

Kaplan, Dana, and Wizel Maya. (2022) The transformative process of SLA teachers when becoming doctoral students. Hal'ah, Journal of teaching, learning, quality and assessment in higher education in Israel (Hebrew). 

Kaplan, Dana. (2022) Girl as uncertainty: Representations of Israeli beauties as aesthetic entrepreneurialism. Dvarim  15:29-48 (Hebrew).

Kaplan Dana; Levy, Gal; Buzhish Sasson; Heli; Biton, Avigail and Kohan-Benlulu, Riki (2022). Doing family while poor: Agentic hopelessness as lived knowledge. Families, Relationships and Societies. (Q2, 2 citations)

Kaplan, Dana, Mashiach, Rona and Zunder, Roy (2020) The face of the creative class: Photojournalism as serial authenticity. Filosofie Semiotiche, 7(2): 2-28. 

Kaplan, Dana (2020) Porn tourism and urban renewal: The case of Eilat. Porn Studies, 7(4): 459-473. (Q1, 3 citations) 

Breuer, Netali and Kaplan, Dana (2020) “I saw it on that TV show": Israeli girls' perceptions of childbirth. Migdar, 7: 1-21 (Hebrew).

Werczberger, Rachel and Kaplan, Dana (2020) Cosmopolitan spirituality and Jewish authenticity: Spiritual renewal and the middle class in Israel. Megamot 55(1): 139-166. (Hebrew).

Werczberger, Rachel and Kaplan, Dana (2019) Spiritual openness and new-age Judaism: Class distinction in a post-secular age. Israeli Sociology 21(1): 74-98 (Hebrew). 

Kaplan, Dana and Werczberger, Rachel (2017) New Age, new economy, new middle class: Jewish new age in Israel and politics of identity. Sociology 51(3): 575–591. (Q1, 27 citations) 
ISSR (International Society for the Sociology of Religion) Best Article Award.

a) Illouz, Eva and Kaplan, Dana (2018) Sexuelles kapital in der spätmoderne. Der blaue Reiter: Journal für Philosophie, 42: 42-47.
b) Illouz, Eva and Kaplan, Dana (2017) Les formes du capital sexuel. Esprit, 7: 133-144 (Q1, 4 citations) 

Levy, Gal and Kaplan, Dana (2017) The Arab Spring in Israeli media and emergent conceptions of citizenship. Arab Media & Society, 24: 1-18 (Q3, 1 citation).

Lowenstein, Hila and Kaplan, Dana (2016) "I understand the concept but my head still thinks quantitatively": Research epistemologies and students' learning-obstacles of qualitative methodology. Studies in Education, 13-14: 295-314 (Hebrew). 

Kaplan, Dana (2013) Feeding new middle-class omnivores: The simple taste and food distinctions at Israeli weddings. Food, Culture and Society, 16(3): 245-264. (Q1, 32 citations).

Kaplan, Dana and Wizel, Maya (2021) "Mind the Gap": The transformative learning process of second language practitioners when becoming scholars. In Carmo, Mafalda (Ed.). END Conference Proceedings. Lisboa: inScience Press. pp. 260-264.

Kaplan, Dana (2020) Sex and Urban Branding in Tel Aviv: Mobile Images and the Value of Atmospheres. In Narlı, Nilüfer, Torus, Belinda, Aydın, Yönet Neslihan (Eds). The Paradigmatic City (IV): Transforming Cities, Selected Papers Book. Istanbul: Mentora  Yayıncılık  ve  Eğitim  Hizmetleri  Anonim  Şirketi. pp. 43-50.  

Kaplan, Dana and Gil, Idit (2023) The beauty of ugliness: Naomi Judkowski's Cugangi (new prisoners), sexual violence and aesthetic capital in the Holocaust. In Bonnesoeur Frédéric, Zühlke, Christin and Wilson, Hannah (Eds.). Micro-Historical Perspectives on an Integrated History of the Holocaust. Berlin: DeGruyter. 

Kaplan, Dana (2022) Between ethics and utility: A sociological account of beauty as human value in Holocaust plays. In Guedj, David and Shiff, Offer (Eds). The Holocaust and Us in Israeli Theater. pp. 106-125 (Hebrew). 

a) Kaplan, Dana (2020) Tarjetas postales sexuales en Tel Aviv: Elaboración de estados de ánimo, sexualidad recreativa y atmósferas urbanas. In Illouz, Eva (Ed). Capitalismo, Consumo y Autenticidad: Las Emociones como Mercancía. Katz Editores. pp. 141-166.
b) Kaplan, Dana (2018) Sex cards in Tel Aviv: Mood work, recreational sexuality and urban atmospheres. In Illouz, Eva (Ed). Emotions as Commodities: Capitalism, Consumption and Authenticity. New York: Routledge. pp. 102-119. (3 citation)
c) Kaplan, Dana (2018) Sex-Werbekarten in Tel Aviv. Stimmungsarbeit, Entspannungssex und städtische Atmosphären. In Illouz, Eva (Ed). Wa(h)re Gefühle. Berlin: Suhrkamp. pp. 142-167.  

Kaplan, Dana (2017) Recreational sex not-at-home: The atmospheres of sex work in Tel Aviv. in B. Pilkey, R. Scicluna, B. Campkin and B. Penner (eds.). Sexuality at Home. London: Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 216-231 (3 citations).
* (2020) re-published by Routledge. 

Kaplan, Dana (2017) Beautiful Israeli girls: Between being in the present and future unpredictability. In Elias, Ana Sofia, Gill, Rosalind and Scharff, Christina (Eds.) Aesthetic Labour: Rethinking Beauty Politics in Neoliberalism. London: Palgrave. pp. 369-384 (1 citation). 

Kaplan, Dana (2011) Sexual liberation and the creative class in Israel. In Seidman, Steven, Fisher, Nancy and Meeks, Chet (Eds.). Introducing the New Sexuality Studies (2d edition). London: Routledge. pp. 357-363 (11 citations).
* (2016) Reprinted in the 3rd edition.

Levy, Gal and Kaplan, Dana (2021) Poverty: The Corona Lexicon. Adva Center and Israeli Sociology, 21(2): 148-149. (Hebrew)

Kaplan, Dana et al. (2011) Sexuality. in Tamir, Tal (Ed). Women and Their Bodies - Our Bodies, Health and Sexuality. Tel-Aviv: Modan (the revised Hebrew edition of Our Bodies, Ourselves). pp. 282-320.

2022 - Gender: Culture and Identity (MA seminar): Updated the edited reader, wrote an updated study guide. 

2017 - Food, Culture and Society (BA seminar): Reviewer.

2013 – 2020 - Communication: Technology, Society and Culture (BA): Co-editor of the reader, critical reader of the textbook.  

2009 – Pierre Bourdieu – Taste, Cultural Capital and the Arts: Assistant. 

2008 - Politics of Citizenship: Assistant.  

2007-2008 - Mass Media in Israel: Reviewer, assistant.  

2006-2008 - Communication: Technology, Society and Culture: Contributing author, scientific editor, and reviewer.