Professor Adi Ophir
14 Lincoln St. Tel Aviv
67134
Home - 03-5626831
Office - 03-6409198
email: adiophir@post.tau.ac.il
Adi Ophir, is associate professor at the Cohn Institute.
Ophir's main areas of interest are modern and contemporary continental
philosophy, ethics, political philosophy, and critical studies. He has written
about twentieth thinkers like Arendt, Foucault, Lyotard, Leivnas, and Agamben,
and about various aspects of Israeli culture and society. In his Order of
Evils (Zone Books, forthcoming, originally published as Lashon lara,
Am Oved 2000) he presents an outline for “moral ontology based on understanding
the social production and distribution of “evils” (losses, damages, injuries,
suffering, and risks), and proposes a new interpretation of the concepts of
evil and injustice. Working for the Present (Avodat Hahove,
Hakkibutz Hameuchad 2001) is a collection of deconstructive readings of some
major texts and events in contemporary Israeli culture. More recently he
published with Ariella Azoulay Terrible Days (Yamim Raim, Resling
2002), a collection of critical essays on the current political situation in
Israel.
Adi Ophir founded and edited Theory
and Criticism, Israel's leading journal for critical theory. For the
last three years he directed an interdisciplinary research project in
cooperation with the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute on "Humanitarian Action
in Catastrophes: The Shaping of Contemporary Political Imagination and Moral
Sensibilities." In its new phase, and in cooperation with Palestinian
scholars, the research focuses on processes of “catastrophization” and the
responses of local and global humanitarian and human rights organizations to
various aspects of the chronic and ongoing disaster in Palestine-Israel. Ophir
is also a fellow at the Center of Advance Studies, The Hartman Institute,
Jerusalem.
Selected List of Courses
Monographic Seminars on Michel Foucault, Jean-Francois Lyotard, Gilles
Deleuze, and Giorgio Agamben.
Thematic Seminars on contemporary French Philosophy; chapters in the
ontology of morals; history of ethics in 18th and 19th Century; the idea of
civil society; thinking the historical present; reflections on catastrophe; a
philosophical history of disasters; the idea and practice of humanitarianism;
the concept of sovereignty.
Introductory Courses in political philosophy, and in critical theory and
cultural studies (with Hannan Hever).
Selected List of Publications
Books
A. Ophir, 1991. Plato's
Invisible Cities: Discourse and Power in the 'Republic' London:
Routledge 1991.
A. Ophir, 2001. Thinking for
the Present: Essays on Israeli Culture and Society [Avodat Hahove],
Hakkibutz Hameuchad.
A. Ophir, ed. 1999. 50 to 48: Critical Moments in the
History of the State of Israel - Essays and Chronicle, The Van Leer
Jerusalem Institute and Hakkibutz Hameuchad,.
A Ophir and Yoav Peled, eds., 2001. Israel:
from a Mobilized to Civil Society? Hakkibutz Hameuchad.
A Ophir and Ariella Azoulay, 2002. Terrible
Days: Between Disaster and Utopia [Yamim Raiim], Resling.
A. Ophir, forthcoming. The
Order of Evils: Chpaters in the Ontology of Morals [Lashon Lara,
Am-Oved 2000), (Zone Books).
Articles
A. Ophir, 1988, "Michel Foucault
and the Semiotics of the Phenomenal," Dialogue XXVII (1988), pp. 387-415
A. Ophir, 1989, "The Semiotics
of Power: Reading Michel Foucault's Discipline and Punish", Manuscrito
XII, 2 (1989), pp. 9-34
A. Ophir 1991, "The Place of
Knowledge Recreated: The Library of Michel de Montaigne," Science in
Context, 4:1, spring 1991, pp. 163-189.
Feldhay, Rivka and Adi Ophir 1989,
"Heresy and Hierarchy: The Authorization of Giordano Bruno," Stanford
Humanities Review, Spring 1989, vol. 1 no.1, pp.118-38
A. Ophir 1994a.
"Introduction" to Le Souper des cendres, Giordano Bruno, Oeuvres
Completes, tome II, Paris: Les belles letrres, pp. ix-lxviii.
A. Ophir 1994b. "From Pharaoh to
Saddam Hussein: Deconstruction of the Passover Haggadah." In The Other in
Jewish Thought and History, ed. by Laurence Silberstein and Robert Cohn, New
York: New York University Press.
A. Ophir 1996a. "Between Kant
and Eichmann: Thinking on Evil After Arendt," History and Memory, 8:2,
1996 (pp. 89-136).
A. Ophir 1996b. "The Poor in
Deed Facing the Lord of all Deeds: A Postmodern Reading of the Yom Kippur
Mahzor.", in Interpreting Judaism in a Postmodern Age, ed. by Steven
Kepnes, New York: New York University Press
A. Ophir 1997. "Shifting the
Ground of the Moral Domain: Reading Lyotard's Differend," Constellations,
vol. 4, no.2, Oct. 1997 (pp. 189-204).
אופיר ע., 1991, "מעבר לטוב - רוע: מתווה
לתיאוריה פוליטית של רעות", תיאוריה וביקורת 1, קיץ 1991
(עמ' 77-41).
אופיר ע., 1996א, "פוסטמודרניזם: עמדה
פילוסופית", בתוך אילן גור זאב, עורך, חינוך בעידן השיח
הפוסטמודרניסטי, ירושלים:
מאגנס 1996 (עמ' 163-135).
אופיר ע., 1996ב, "נזק, סבל
וגבולות השיח המוסרי: בעקבות ליוטר". עיון מ"ה, 1996 (עמ'
149-190).
אופיר ע., 1998, "הכוחות המזוינים של ממשלת
התבונה: על מטאפוריקה וכוח ב'ביקורת התבונה הטהורה", עיון
מ"ז, 1998 (190-165).
אופיר ע., 1999, "אפילו המלחמה יש בה משהו
מן הנשגב", בתוך ירון סנדרוביץ ואלי פרידלנדר, עורכים, מלאכת השיפוט:
יופי, שגב ותכליתיות בביקורת כוח השיפוט של קאנט, מפעלים אוניברסיטאיים להוצאה לאור, עמ' 210-182.
אופיר ע. 2003א. "טכנולוגיות מוסריות:
ניהול האסון והפקרת החיים". תיאוריה וביקורת 22, אביב 2003:
67-103.
אופיר ע. .2003ב "בין קידוש החיים להפקרתם:
במקום מבוא ל-Homo Sacer,"
בתוך שי לביא, עורך, טכנולוגיות של צדק: משפט, מדע וחברה, הוצאת
רמות.
Updated: October 2003