17th Annual Rice University Lecture Series: Adi Livny – Violence & Political Imagination

The 17th Annual Rice University Lecture Series

Hebrew Culture Responding to Violence: Before and After October 7

Jewish and Hebrew culture has always reflected and responded to the turbulent and often violent history of the Jewish people, from ancient persecutions to modern conflicts. In recent years, violence has once again profoundly shaped Jewish life and identity, particularly following the events of October 7 and the ongoing aftermath. This lecture series examines how Hebrew culture has grappled with violence across different eras and contexts, from the lived experiences of contemporary artists to the collective memory embedded in literature and history. By exploring these diverse perspectives, we will consider the varied ways Hebrew culture has and continues to process, memorialize and respond to violence in its many forms.

A History of Violence and Political Imagination in Israel/Palestine

This talk examines how episodes of violence have shaped the political imagination of Jews and Arabs in Israel/Palestine. From the 1929 disturbances in Mandatory Palestine to October 7, violence has repeatedly reshaped two central paradigms for the land’s future: partition (“the two-state solution”) and binationalism. By returning to their emergence in the Mandate period and tracing how subsequent waves of violence constrained, redirected and redefined them, the talk considers how October 7 has fundamentally altered current discussions around these two long-standing but persistent paradigms.

Adi Livny is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Middlebury College. She holds a Ph.D. in Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where she was a fellow at the Mandel School for Advanced Studies in the Humanities. Her work has appeared in Studies in Contemporary Jewry, Armed Forces & Society and Kursbuch. Her recent publications include “The State, the University, and the Budgeting Formula,” in The History of the Hebrew University, 1948–1967 (Magnes, 2024). She is currently completing her first book, Settlers, Natives, Empire, and the Making of the Hebrew University, 1918–1948.