Areas of Inquiry

Symbolic Economies, Place Identity & Urban Cultural Production

Examines how cities and institutions are shaped by symbolic economies, creative labor, and grassroots cultural infrastructure. Focuses on urban semiotics, branding, and representational politics — including stakeholder-informed development and policy frameworks.

Study: “Creative Class, Active Audience”
Projects: Cultural mapping and influencer strategy for the City of Jerusalem (Catalyst Group); city branding framework
Essays: “On the Role of Culture in Urban Development”
Themes: cultural capital, place-making, urban media, semiotics, creative cities

Self-Image, Branding & Psychoanalysis

Blends consumer psychology and psychoanalysis to examine how brands reflect and produce identity. Investigates gender, projection, and the cultural unconscious of marketing.

Study: “Self-Image Congruence & the USC Brand”
Essays: “On Hegemonic Masculinity, Cultural Resistance, and Brands”
Themes: identity marketing, projection, gender, psychodynamic branding

Narrative Illness, Translational Research & Symbolic Misrecognition

Merges lived experience with research to examine how chronic illness is made visible — or invisible — through narrative. Integrates user-centered design, narrative medicine, and symbolic analysis.

Projects: Narrative strategy for ME/CFS and Long COVID (Stanford Genome Tech); early advocacy for Israel’s ME/CFS and Dysautonomia communities
Themes: illness semiotics, narrative medicine, disability visibility, symbolic justice

Antisemitism, Identity & Symbolic Discourse

Analyzes antisemitism as an affective ideology and symbolic system. Uses discourse analysis and digital ethnography to map how antisemitic narratives circulate across ideological and institutional domains.

Projects: AJC Alef Fellowship; Shoah Foundation proposal; Jewish indigeneity narrative strategy
Essays: “Echoes of Resilience,” op-eds on Sanders/Clinton and antisemitism
Themes: symbolic violence, affective radicalization, racialized antisemitism, digital ideology

Israeli Political Culture, Media & Foreign Policy Narratives

Explores how Israel’s domestic and international image is shaped through political discourse, digital platforms, and symbolic legitimacy struggles.

Projects: Independent political essays; ethnography of far-right antisemitic YouTube subcultures
Themes: Zionism, digital mediation, soft power, state narrative

Post-Conflict Representation & Collective Memory

Engages the politics of memory and trauma through media, policy, and cultural production. Focuses on how collective suffering is narrated, memorialized, or contested.

Essays: “Echoes of Resilience,” Holocaust partnership initiatives
Themes: memory politics, trauma narration, representational sovereignty