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evival
By Louise Shalev
14
You need a good grounding in music,
history and philosophy to grasp the
shift from classical to Romantic music
and a strong knowledge of philosophy
and literature to conduct a Nietzschian
reading of Shay Agnon.It’s this type of
broad, interdisciplinary exploration that
is the hallmark of TAU’s Marc Rich
Honors Program in the Humanities
and Arts, a unique program providing
a concentration in both fields of study
at the undergraduate level.
The program is a joint initiative of
Prof. Shlomo Biderman, former Dean
of the Entin Faculty of Humanities,
and Prof. Hannah Naveh, Dean of the
Katz Faculty of Arts. Now entering its
Cultural Immersion
fifth year of operation, the program
was designed to redress the declining
status of the arts and humanities in
society in recent years and reestablish
these concentrations as crucial fields of
relevance to students. The program is in
line with – and even preceded – recent
recommendations by a special committee
of academic representatives and
business people to increase the number
of excellence programs in the arts and
humanities at Israeli institutions of
higher education.
“This is a degree program with a
mission,” states program head Dr. Iris
Milner, a Hebrew literature expert.
“We take about 20 highly intelligent
and motivated students each year and
expose them to the widest possible scope
of disciplines in arts and humanities,
while also nurturing them towards advanced
research,” says Milner. “Our aim
is to develop a cadre of researchers and
thinkers in the liberal arts.”
The Marc Rich Honors Program in the Humanities and the Arts
is helping rejuvenate undervalued study areas
Value system
The program’s initiators also see
it as a way of contributing to tikkun
olam in Israel. “By reinstating the value
placed upon humanities and arts we
are ultimately bringing about positive
and profound change in the Israeli
value system,” says Dean of Arts Prof.
Hannah Naveh.
These lofty ideals are in line with the
aspirations of program graduate Reuel
Shualy, 30. Reuel took the program out
of a desire to make a real change in
Israeli society, particularly in the field
of education. Reuel, a combat helicopter
pilot who fought in the Second Lebanon
War, believes that a broad knowledge
of culture is essential to understanding
humankind. He hopes this understanding
will guide him toward a meaningful
leadership position in society, perhaps
as a school principal.
Reuel grew up in the southern Negev
town of Mitzpe Ramon, one of ten sib-
lings in a secular family. His parents,
ex-kibbutzniks, moved there out of ideological
reasons to settle the Negev. He
attended high school in Sde Boker at
a school specializing in environmental
and field studies, but also developed a
love of reading and writing poetry at
an early age.
Like other students in the program,
Reuel took two study clusters from each
faculty, for a total of four: cinema, theater,
philosophy and literature. “All four
are separate languages that speak to one
another,” he says. “Knowing Nietzsche
helps me understand the concept of
tragedy in the theater, for example. In
the end, all art speaks about life. Cinema
does it through the screen; theater, on
stage; and philosophy speaks about humans
through literature and writing.”
High or low art?
“I don’t believe in high art or low
art,” says Reuel. “There is complex art.