Essay: A Reckoning of the Soul in an Artistic Style

"God willing - the worldwide contemporary spiritual awakening is finally attacking us too, and the art exhibition in front of us is one of the expressions of that." This quote appears in the main text of the catalog of the art exhibition "Heshon Nefesh", curated by Dafna Naor, and with the participation of 43 artists, presented at HiTouch in Herzliya Pituach in 2009. The text was written by Marianna Ruah-Midbar.

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Article: The Dynamics of a Cultural Struggle in Academia – The Case of New Age Music Research

The academia is a cultural player, and when it deals with a culturally controversial issue - the academic discourse actually plays a role in the cultural game and struggle between forces. This article - dealing with New Age Music - is a product of a scholarly cooperation between Omri and Marianna Ruah-Midbar, as a crossroad of their sceintific interests. It was published in Berkeley University's journal - Cultural Analysis.

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Lecture: The gates of creativity shall never be locked – A comparative study of the spiritual-musical adaptation of the liturgical poem ‘Im Nin’alu’ in contemporary pop-culture

This lecture is part of the research project on the current reincarnation of the liturgical poem 'Im Nin'alu' in contemporary western pop-culture. The lecture deals with issues and challenges of coping in the postmodern situation, and presents three models of contemporary spirituality through the study case that is discussed: a spirituality of return to tradition, a spirituality of yearning to the Other, and a remix-postmodern spirituality. I've co-published an English article on this subject in the journal Folklore. The lecture took place in the 2nd international conference of the center of Yemenite Judaism and its culture, conducted on September 2018, marking 400 years of Shalem Shabbazi's birthday, at Yad Ben Zvi in Jerusalem. A simultaneous translation (Hebrew-English) has been executed in the conference.

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