Ariella Azoulay

Ariella Aïsha Azoulay is Professor of Modern Culture and Media and Professor of Comparative Literature at Brown University, advancing Arts and Culture through her scholarship in visual studies, photography, and critical theory. Born in 1962, her academic background includes a PhD cum laude in 1997 from Tel Aviv University’s Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas, with the thesis TRAining for ART: Critique of Museal Economy. She earned an MA in Semiotics from Université Paris VIII Saint Denis in 1986, a Licence in Cinema and Literature from the same institution in 1985, a DEA from École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris in 1986-1987, and conducted doctoral studies at EHESS and Tel Aviv University from 1988 to 1996. Post-doctoral research followed as a Fellow at the Rosenzweig Center, Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1997-1998.

Prior to Brown University, where she joined as Assistant Professor in Modern Culture and Media and Comparative Literature in 2013 and was promoted to Professor in 2015, Azoulay served as Senior Lecturer (2002-2011) and Lecturer (1998-2002) in Hermeneutics and Cultural Studies at Bar Ilan University, and Director of the Photo-Lexic Research Group at Tel Aviv University’s Minerva Center (2010-2012). She founded and directed curatorial and theoretical studies programs at Camera Obscura School of Art in Tel Aviv (1995-2002), and held visiting positions including Gladstein Visiting Professor at the University of Connecticut Human Rights Center (2010) and Leverhulme Research Professor at Durham University (2011). Her research specializations encompass the political ontology of photography, civil imagination, potential history, unlearning imperialism, human rights, colonialism, migrations, anti-colonial temporalities, archives, and visuality. Major publications include The Jewelers of the Ummah: A Potential History of the Jewish Muslim World (Verso, 2024), Potential History: Unlearning Imperialism (Verso, 2019), Civil Imagination: A Political Ontology of Photography (Verso, 2012), The Civil Contract of Photography (Zone Books, 2008), and Death’s Showcase: The Power of Image in Contemporary Democracy (MIT Press, 2001). She is a film essayist with works such as Un-documented: Unlearning Imperial Plunder (2019) and curator of exhibitions including Errata (Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona, 2019). Awards include the 2023 Infinity Award from the International Center of Photography, 2022 Berlin Prize from the American Academy in Berlin, 2010 Igor Zabel Award, and 2002 Infinity Award. At Brown, she has directed Undergraduate Studies in Modern Culture and Media, served on admissions committees, the Governing Board of the Cogut Center for the Humanities, and contributed editorially to journals and book series.

Professional Email: ariella_azoulay@brown.edu