#  Mazalit Haim 

Senior Preceptor in Modern Hebrew

 

 

 



   ![Mazalit Haim](/sites/g/files/omnuum4571/files/styles/hwp_4_5__320x400/public/2026-07/Haim-Mazalit.jpg.png?itok=QD0mo_FB) 

 



 

 location\_on Vanserg Hall, #123, 29 Francis Ave., Cambridge, MA 02138 

 



 

Mazalit Haim is a scholar of modern Hebrew literature and Israeli culture. Her research explores the politics of hope and despair in modern Jewish and Israeli literature, visual art, museums, and public culture. Drawing on affect theory, psychoanalysis, and cultural studies, she examines how emotions shape collective identities, political imaginaries, and visions of the future.

She is currently completing a book manuscript that examines manifestations of hope and despair in modern Jewish and Israeli culture through the lens of affect theory. Bringing together literature, visual culture, museum studies, and psychoanalysis, the project explores how emotional narratives challenge, sustain, and reimagine collective futures.

Before joining Harvard University, Haim directed the Hebrew Studies Program at Vanderbilt University, where she taught Hebrew language, Israeli culture, and modern Hebrew literature. Her pedagogical work integrates language instruction with literary and cultural analysis and explores innovative approaches to Hebrew language education. Her broader interests include museum and curatorial studies, public humanities, and the relationship between language learning and cultural interpretation.

**Selected Publications**

- "From a History of Tears to Hope on Display: Affective Curatorship and the Jewish Future at ANU," *AJS Perspectives* (Summer 2026).
- "Primitive Agonies and the Breakdown That Always Has Been in Shalom Auslander's *Hope: A Tragedy*," in *Routledge International Handbook of Psychoanalysis and Jewish Studies* (2025).
- "Redemptions of Past Futures in Yael Bartana's Work," in *Routledge Companion to Cultural Texts and the Nation* (2025).
- "A Doctorate on Hope: Yehuda Amichai's Affective Pedagogy," *Prooftexts* 41:1 (2024).



 

 

 





 

 

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