Senior Research Fellow
Department of International Development
Biography
Born in London in 1953, David Aberbach graduated from high school in USA and returned to England in 1971, where he completed his undergraduate degree (UCL, English, 1975) and graduate degrees (Oxford, M. Litt., 1977; D. Phil.,1980, Hebrew and Comparative Literature).
He worked for the London Borough of Barnet as a nursery nurse while training in child psychotherapy at the Tavistock Clinic. From 1982, he taught at Oxford, Cambridge and Cornell Universities before moving to McGill University, Montreal, in 1986, where he is currently Professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature. He is also Visiting Fellow at Harvard University, Kennedy Center for International Development..
Research Interests / Areas of Teaching
Bridging the Arts and Social Sciences, in areas such as loss and separation, charisma, nationalism, and poverty, with bases in Hebrew and English literature.
[See 'A taste of Hard Times', published in Times Higher Education, August 2013.]
Hebrew Literature in Tsarist Russia, mid-19th century to 1917.
Current work: poverty and literature from the Bible to the present time, particularly Europe, 1789-1939, including biblical influences on Poor Law and welfare; and Poor Law and its influences on English literature.
[See ‘Divine Scroungers: Scripture, legislation and the poor in Western literature’, presented at the LSE in March 2015.]
Selected Publications
National Poetry, Empires and War, Routledge 2015.
The European Jews, Patriotism and the Liberal State: A Study of Literature and Social Psychology, Routledge 2013.
‘European national poetry, Islam, and the defeat of the medieval Church’, Nations and Nationalism 18,4 (2012): 603-623.
‘The British Empire and Revolutionary National Poetry’, Nations and Nationalism 16,2 (2010): 220-239.
‘Byron to D’Annunzio: From Liberalism to Fascism in National Poetry 1815-1920’, Nations and Nationalism, 14,3 (2008): 478-497.
‘Enlightenment and Cultural Confusion: Mendele’s The Mare and Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions’, Comparative Literary Studies, 41,2 (2004): 214-230.
Major Turning Points in Jewish Intellectual History, Palgrave Macmillan 2003.
The Roman-Jewish Wars and Hebrew Cultural Nationalism, (co-author), Macmillan 2000.
Charisma in Politics, Religion and the Media: Private Trauma, Public Ideals, Macmillan 1996.
Realism, Caricature and Bias: The Fiction of Mendele Mocher Sefarim, The Littman Library 1993.
Imperialism and Biblical Prophecy 750-500 BCE, Routledge 1993.
Surviving Trauma: loss, literature and psychoanalysis, Yale University Press 1989
Contact Details
Email: D.Aberbach@lse.ac.uk