Spring 2020 seminar: Ph.D. candidate, Near Eastern studies
Re'ee Hagay is a second-year doctoral student in the Department of Near Eastern Studies. Born and raised in Tel Aviv, Hagay is the grandson of immigrants from Baghdad, Beirut, and the Atlas Mountains. He received his B.A. in sociology and anthropology and M.A. in sociocultural anthropology from Tel Aviv University. In the dissertation thesis he is shaping here at Cornell, he develops a critical perspective on modern nationalism through an ethnographic and archival inquiry into the connections between sound, memory, and exile in Mizrahi Jewish culture in Israel/Palestine. He is interested, moreover, in the political conditions of knowledge production as rooted in the tension between official and independent archives. Hagay has presented his work in academic conferences worldwide, and was awarded grants from Cornell Jewish Studies, The Jonathan Shapira Foundations, The Mellon Foundation, and more.