Galia Plotkin Amrami, Phd Curriculum Vitae - Buchmann Law Faculty

Academic Education
Galia Plotkin Amrami, Phd
Curriculum Vitae
Minerva Humanities Center,
Rosenberg Building, Room 407c
Tel-Aviv University
Ramat-Aviv,
Tel-Aviv 69978
E-mail: galia.plotkin@gmail.com
0509843439
2005-2011 Ph.D. The Cohn Institute for the History and the Philosophy of
Sciences and Ideas and The Porter School of Cultural Studies, Tel-
Aviv University, Israel. Dissertation Topic: “The National Conflict
and Mental Trauma: Construction of National Traumatic Narrative
through the Knowledge and Practice of Mental Health Practitioners
from Different Epistemic Cultures.” Advisor: Professor Jose Brunner.
1998-2003 M.A., Magna Cum Laude, Department of Sociology and
Anthropology, Tel-Aviv University, Israel. Thesis Topic: “Psychology
and Immigrant Absorption in Israel: The Professional-Therapeutic
Discourse in the Absorption Apparatus of the Nation-State." Advisors:
Professors Haim Hazan and Eva Illouz.
1992-1995 B.A., Educational Counseling and Sociology, Department of Education
and Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Tel-Aviv University,
Israel
1994-1996 Training Course in Group Facilitation, The School of Social Work, Tel-
Aviv University, Israel.
1988-1991 Education and Music, The Pedagogical University of Minsk, Belarus
(former Soviet Union). (Studies ended due to immigration to Israel.)
Academic Positions
2011-2012 Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, Minerva Humanities Center, Tel-Aviv
University.
2009-2011 Lecture, School of Social Work, Tel-Aviv University
2009-2012 Lecture, School of Social Sciences & Management, Ruppin Academic
Center.
2001-2002 Tutor, The Open University

Awards and Scholarships
2011-2012 Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship, The Minerva Humanities
Center, Tel-Aviv University.
2005-2009 Ph.D. Scholarship For Academic Excellence, The Cohn Institute for the
History and the Philosophy of Sciences and Ideas, Faculty of
Humanities, Tel-Aviv University, Israel.
2004 Best Master Thesis Award, the Israeli Anthropological Association.
2006-2007 Fellowship in Research Group “Therapeutic Discourse, Inequality and
National Boundaries,” Van Leer Institute, Jerusalem.
2003-2005 Fellowship in Research Group “Russians in Israel: Migrating
Knowledge and Transforming Identities,” Van Leer Institute, Jerusalem.
Travel Awards
October 2011 Competence Center "History of Knowledge". Travel grant to a workshop
in University of Zurich. Switzerland.
September 2006 The Third International Trauma Research Net Conference. Travel
Grant to a conference in St.- Moritz, Switzerland.
Publications
Articles in Refereed Journals
Plotkin-Amrami, Galia (2008) “From Russianness to Israeliness through the Landscape
of the Soul: Therapeutic Discourse in Practices of Immigrant Absorption of ‘Russian’
Adolescents.” Social Identities 14(6): 739-763.
Plotkin-Amrami, Galia (Accepted for publication) "Between national ideology and
Western therapy: on the emergence of a new 'culture of trauma' following the 2005
forced evacuation of Jewish Israeli settlers". Transcultural Psychiatry.
Plotkin-Amrami, Galia. "Knowledge, politics and cultures of trauma: Debates among
mental health practitioners over the experience of the Disengagement from the Gaza
Strip and the West Bank", Israeli Sociology (In preparation -Revised and resubmit).
Plotkin-Amrami, Galia. “Contradiction, co-existence and "middle voice" : therapeutic
performance and theological meanings in the preparation for the Disengagement
Plan", Current Anthropology (Under revision).
Chapters in Edited Volumes

Plotkin-Amrami, Galia (In Press) "Psychology absorbs Newcomers in Israel:
Therapeutic Discourse in the process of "Homecoming". In J. Lerner and R. Feldhay
(Eds.) Russians in Israel: The Pragmatics of Culture in Migration, Jerusalem: Van-Leer
Institute Press. (Hebrew)
Plotkin-Amrami, Galia (Forthcoming 2012) “We are not only psychologists and social
workers, but also citizens of the state, Jews: Constructing a Narrative of the Disengagement
in the Encounter between the Professional-Therapeutic Ethos and the Religious-Zionist
Ethos.” In N. Davidovitch, R. Zalashik, and M. Alberstein (Eds.) Trauma and Memory in
Israel: Between Individual and Collective Experiences, Ramat Gan: Bar- Ilan University
Press. (Hebrew)
Academic Teaching Experience
2009-2011 “Therapeutic discourse from the sociological perspective: between the
modern practice of self-creation and the mechanism of social
control.” M.A. course,
School of Social Work, Tel-Aviv University.
2009-2012 “An anthropological perspective on the therapeutic narratives of
mental trauma.” B.A. course,
School of Social Sciences & Management, Ruppin Academic Center.
2001-2002 “Introduction to Sociology.” B.A. course, The Open University.
Research Activities
2011-2012 Minerva Humanities Center. Academic coordinator of the research
project "Therapy in Translation: Knowledge, Culture, Politics" (with
Prof. Jose Brunner)
2006-2008 Van Leer Institute, Jerusalem. Participated in the research group
“Therapeutic Discourse, Inequality and National Boundaries.”
2003-2006 Van Leer Institute, Jerusalem. Participated in the research group
“Russians in Israel: Migrating Knowledge and Transforming
Identities”
Scientific Conferences and Workshops
"The constitution of traumatic legacies: Comparing Religious and Secular therapeutic
constructions of the Resilient Self in the Wake of Conflict". Presented at the 110the

Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association. 16-20 November
2011. Montreal, Canada.
“National Conflict, Resilient Self and Emotional Performance”. Presented at the
international workshop “Trauma in Israel-Palestine: Science, Politics, Images”. 28-29
October 2011, The Competence Center "History of Knowledge". University of
Zurich. Switzerland.
"Who is a pure victim? Trauma cultures and mediation of suffering in the Israeli
therapeutic field". Presented at the workshop "Cultural Competence in Israeli
Healthcare and Beyond: Theoretical, Practical, and Ethical Challenges". June 15-16
2011. Haifa University, Israel.
“Psychotherapeutic theoretization, work of science and nationalization of trauma”.
Presented at the annual conference of the Israeli Society for History & Philosophy of
Sciences, 6 March 2011. Bloomfield Science Museum, Jerusalem, Israel.
“From Private to Collective, and from Collective to National: On the Appearance of
the Category ‘National Trauma’ and Work of Science.” Presented at the annual
conference of the Israeli Sociological Association, 7-8 February 2011. Tel Aviv-
Jaffa Academic College.
“On the Controversy of the Disengagement Trauma.” Presented at the Summer Seminar
“Culture, History and the Politics of Sentiment,” Visiting Professor Ann Laura Stoler, 9-
13 August 2009. Van Leer Institute, Jerusalem.
“The Narration of the Disengagement Experience in the Israeli Therapeutic Discourse.”
Presented at the Israeli Law and Society Association International Conference, “Global,
Regional and Local: Law, Politics, and Society in Comparative Perspective,” 24-26
December 2008, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem.
“On the Politics of Professional Narration: The Disengagement from the West Bank
and Gaza Strip in the Israeli Therapeutic Discourse.” Presented at the annual meeting
of the Association for Israel Studies, 19-21 May 2008, New York University.
“On the Therapeutic Interpretation and National Identification: The Practices of
Prevention of Mental Traumatization as an Encounter of Professional-Therapeutic and
Zionist-Religious Ethos.” Presented at the symposium, "Psychology on the Couch of
Sociology,”1-2 November 2007, Van Leer Institute, Jerusalem.
"On the Moral Power of Naming: the disengagement experience in Israeli therapeutic
field". Presented at the Summer Workshop for Advanced Studies: “Between
Professional and Political,” 17-19 September 2007. Van Leer Jerusalem Institute.
“Between Trauma and Nationhood: On Therapeutic Interpretation, Ethnographic
Writing and the Question of Identification.” Presented at the annual meeting of the Israel
Anthropological Association, 9-10 May 2007, Ahva Academic College.
“Therapy, Morality and Nationhood: The Construction of Traumatized Self in
Disengagement Process in Israel.” Presented at the Third International Trauma Research

Net Conference: “Trauma – Stigma and Distinction: Social Ambivalence in the Face of
Extreme Suffering,” 14-17 September 2006, St.-Moritz, Switzerland.
“On the Moral Boundaries of the Traumatized Community: Disengagement and the
Construction of the Self of Zionist-Religious Settlers.” Presented at the annual meeting
of the Israeli Anthropological Association, 7-8 June 2006.
“The Disengagement as an ‘Ideological Trauma’: The Practices of Prevention of Mental
Traumatization as an Encounter of Professional-Therapeutic and Zionist-Religious
Ethos.” Presented at the annual conference of the Israeli Society for History &
Philosophy of Sciences, 26 March 2006. Bloomfield Science Museum. Jerusalem.
“From Zionist Socialization to Therapeutic Intervention: The Therapeutic Discourse in
the Absorption of 'Russian' Immigrants.” Presented at the international conference:
“Russians in Israel and Beyond: The Meanings of Culture in Discourse and Practices,”,
8-9 June 2005. Van Leer Institute, Jerusalem.
“Enactment of National Collective Memory as Strategy of Location of Jews Immigrants
from the Former Soviet Union in Israel and Germany.” Presented at the international
conference: “Russians in Israel and Beyond: The Meanings of Culture in Discourse and
Practices,” 8-9 June 2005. Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, Jerusalem.
“From Zionist Socialization to Therapeutic Intervention: Transforming a New Immigrant
into an Object of the Therapeutic Discourse.” Presented at the annual meeting of the
Israeli Anthropological Association, 19-20 May 2004.
“Psychology and Immigrant Absorption: The Therapeutic Discourse in the Identity
Construction Practices of the Nation State.” Presented at the annual conference of the
Israeli Sociological Association, 25-25 February 2004. Ben-Gurion University. Beer-
Sheva.
Conference Panels Organized
“Contribution of Sociology to the Investigation of Scientific Practices: the Processes
of Construction, Transformation and Preservation of Scientific Categories as Socioscientific
Activity.” Annual conference of the Israeli Sociological Association, 7-8
February 2011. Tel Aviv- Jaffa Academic College (co-organized with Dr. Uri
Shwed).
“New Manifestations of the Glocal Self.” Annual meeting of the Israeli
Anthropological Association, 7-8 June 2006.
Invited Lectures

“On the purity of trauma victim and professional knowledge". Presented at the meeting
of the psychoanalytic laboratory, School of continuing medical education, 27 April,
2011. Tel Aviv University.
"Knowledge, mental health and national conflict: on the historical development of the
new narrative of traumatic suffering". Presented at the seminar of the research group
"Migrating knowledge", 29 March 2011. Minerva Humanities Center, Tel-Aviv
University.
“Is it Trauma? The Israeli Mental Health Discourse on the Disengagement Experience”
Presented at the Department Seminar, Sociology-Anthropology Department, 29
November 2010. Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva.
"Between the therapeutic and the political: construction of "the Disengagement
trauma" in Israeli therapeutic discourse". Presented at the Department Seminar,
Department of Behavioral Science, 4 January 2010. Ruppin Academic Center.
“On the Moral Logic of Traumatic Narrative” Presented at the workshop of the research
group on “Therapeutic Discourse, Inequality, and National Borders,” in conjunction with
the international conference, “Psychology on the Couch of Sociology,” 29 May 2008.
Van Leer Institute, Jerusalem.
“Evolution of Sociological Research on Immigration in Israel”. Presented at the meeting
of the research group: “Migrating Knowledge and Transforming Identities,” 15 February
2003. Van Leer Institute, Jerusalem.
“Between Remembrance and Forgetting: Primary Dilemmas Surrounding the Question
of the Impact of Holocaust Memory on Israeli Identity.” Presented at the Center for
Adult Education, 12 November 2003. Schwerin, Germany.
“The Jewish Holocaust as Social Myth and Political Issue: The Israeli Context of
Holocaust Memory.” Presented at the Center for Adult Education, 12 November 2003.
Schwerin, Germany.
Referee for Professional Journals
Israeli Sociology
Membership in Professional Associations:
Israeli Sociological Association
Israeli Anthropological Association
American Anthropological Association
Professional Work and Outreach
2008-2009 Ophek Prison. Educational counseling for adolescent convicts from
FSU within the project for rehabilitation and support for convicts

immigrants.
2002-2006 “Natal” (Israel Trauma Center for Victims of Terror and War). Group
facilitator in the Community Unit.
2001-2004 “Giv'at Chaviva” (Seminar Center). Development and management
of educational seminars on “Traumatic Collective Memory and the
Question of National Identity” for Russian immigrant students and
adults in Israel and Germany.
2002-2004 “Naaleh.” Absorption program for new immigrant adolescents.
Counseling for educational and treatment teams.
2002-2003 Educational Counselor for "Naaleh", Mevoot Eron High School.
1998-2000 “Naaleh.” Absorption program for new immigrant
adolescents. Group Facilitator for youth groups
and instruction of educational teams.
1997-1998 “Kidum Noar.” Counseling for immigrant high risk adolescents.
1995-1997 Ort Network. Educational Counseling in High Schools (Ort Yad
Shapira and Ort Tel-ha-Shomer)
1994-1997 “Naamat” (Movement of Working Women and Volunteers). Group
facilitator for women’s groups.
1993-1999 Assorted employment activities for The Jewish Agency;
The Institute for the Development of Quality Leadership
The Institute for Jewish and Zionist Education (MELITZ);
The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC).
Community leadership training, the development and facilitation of
educational seminars and enrichment projects for students and
academics in Israel and abroad.