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Dissertation Topic: National Identity as Media Ritual. An Analysis of the 'Torch Lighting Ceremony' for Israel’s 70th Independence Day
Abstract: The dissertation project examines the "Torch Lighting Ceremony" for Israel´s Independence Day from a Study of Religion perspective. It focusses on the relationship between national identity processes and religion by combining theories of space, ritual and the media. Emphasizing religion and especially its relations to power and legitimation processes, this study stresses the interaction of religon and politics in Israel in its complexity. Central research object is the media transmission of the "Torch Lighting Ceremony" for the 70th Independence Day of the State of Israel in 2018, which is considered to be a current crystallization point of Israeli national identity. The analysis approaches the staging of this ceremony as media ritual which contributes significantly in shaping national identity in Israel. It aims at investigating, how the ceremony and its medial representation take part in the formation of various (medial) spaces and how religion operates within these spaces. Thus, the project contributes at deepening the relationship between identity, religion and the media and especially at specifying the relationship between religon, national identity and politics in contemporary Israel.
Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Daria Pezzoli-Olgiati
Subject: Religious studies