EDUCATION
Ph.D. Candidate University of Pennsylvania, History and Sociology of Science
Areas of Specialization : Environmental History; History of Technology and the
Body; Landscapes of the Middle East; History of Medicine and Public Health
MA
BA Honors
BA
DISSERTATION
University of Pennsylvania, History and Sociology of Science, 2010
Hebrew University of Jerusalem, History, 2007
Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Cognitive Science, 2007
Milk & Honey: Technologies of Plenty in the Making of a Holy Land, 1890-1965
Chair: Robert A. Aronowitz · Committee: John Tresch and Heather J. Sharkey
(Expected defense: September 2014)
PUBLICATIONS
Tamar Novick, “A New Experimental Animal: The Human Placenta From the Birthing Bed to the Underground and Onto the Lab,”
Technology and Culture (manuscript in progress)
Tamar Novick, “Psychiatry and Divine Powers: The Emergence of the Jerusalem Syndrome,”
Social History of Medicine (manuscript in progress)
Tamar Novick. “Technologies of Movement in Late Ottoman Palestine,” in L. Kozma, C.
Schayegh, and A. Wishnitzer (eds), A Global Middle East: Mobility, Materiality and Culture in the Modern Age, 1880-1940 (London, New York: I.B. Tauris) 2014, 263-269
Tamar Novick. “Bible, Bees, and Boxes: The Creation of ‘the Land Flowing with Milk and
Honey’ in Palestine, 1880-1931,” special issue “Food, Power, and Meaning in the Middle
East,”
Food, Culture and Society 16.2 (2013), 281-299
Tamar Novick. “Jump-Starting Society: Polio in Israel in 1950,” special issue: “Infectious
Diseases and Epidemics in Palestine/Israel,”
Korot – The Israeli Journal of the History of
Medicine and Science 21 (2012), 149-174
FELLOWSHIPS AND HONORS
2013-2014 SAS Dissertation Completion Fellowship, University of Pennsylvania
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2008-2013 Benjamin Franklin Fellowship, University of Pennsylvania
2012 Penfield Fellowship for summer research, University of Pennsylvania
2012 Travel grant, American Society for Environmental History (ASEH)
2012
2010
Travel Grant, GAPSA, University of Pennsylvania
Visiting Student, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University
INVITED TALKS
“Humans and Other Creatures in the History of the Middle East,” Course: Muslim, Christian and Jewish Relations in the Middle East: Historical Perspectives, University of Pennsylvania.
April 2014
“Narratives of Decline: Environmental Histories of Israel,” Course: Environmental History,
Hebrew University. Jerusalem, IL. December 2013
“Many Jewish Babies and Much Holy Milk: On the Origins of Plenty in Palestine/Israel,” The
Center for Jewish Studies (HfJS), Heidelberg University. Heidelberg, DE. July 2011
PRESENTATIONS & WORKSHOP PARTICIPATION
“Hungry Goats: Constructing Creatures of Destruction in Palestine/Israel, 1940-1958,” Israel
Studies Association. Sde-Boker, IL. June 2014
“Stavit, the Bovine Champion,” Mandatory Biographies, The Israeli Forum for the Study of the
British Mandate. Tel-Aviv, IL. May 2014
“Technomysticism and the Production of Plenty: The Case of the Moveable Frame Beehive in
Palestine,” Oh-Man Oh-Machine: The Politics and Aesthetics of Posthumanism, Tel-Aviv
University. Tel-Aviv, IL. May 2014
“’Flowing with Milk and Honey’: Cows, Technoscience, and the Burdens of Producing a
Sacred Land,” Zionism as a Cultural Movement, Brown University. Providence, RI. April 2014
“Pergonal and the Roots of the Israeli (In)Fertility Craze,” panel co-organizer, The Israeli
Society for the History & Philosophy of Science. Jerusalem. IL. December 2013
“The Jewish Subject: On the Changing Relationship between Goats, Jews, and the ‘Holy
Land’,” The 16 th World Congress of Jewish Studies. Jerusalem, IL. July 2013
“Getting their Goat: Disturbing Creatures and Capricious Attempts to Change the East,” The
American Society for Environmental History, University of Toronto. Toronto, ON. April 2013
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Co-organizer, The 2013 Workshop for the History of Environment, Agriculture, Technology, and Science (WHEATS), University of Pennsylvania. March 2013
“Milk, Dance, and Dig: Shepherding and the Creation of a Holy Environment in Palestine,” pre-circulated paper presented at “Science, Space, and the Environment” workshop, sponsored by the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society (RCC) at the Smith Centre, Science
Museum. London, UK. July 2012
Participant in “Taking Animals Apart: Exploring Interspecies Enmeshment in a
Biotechnological Era,” Workshop at the Holtz Center for Science and Technology Studies,
University of Wisconsin. Madison, WI. May 2012
“Holy Cow! On Milk Yield, Fertility and the Creation of Plenty in Palestine/Israel” at “Two
Kingdoms: New Perspectives on Flora and Fauna in Environmental History," Northeast
Environmental History Conference. New Haven, CT. April 2012
Participant in “Animals as Place Makers,” a roundtable at The American Society for
Environmental History, University of Wisconsin. Madison, WI. March 2012
“Bees on Camels: Moving Animals and the Creation of a Holy Land,” poster presented at “On the Move: The Middle East and the ‘First Modern Globalization,’” Workshop at the Institute for Advanced Studies, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Jerusalem, IL. January 2012
“Emerging Epidemic in an Emerging Society: Poliomyelitis in Israel in the 1950s,” The
American Association for the History of Medicine. Philadelphia, PA. April 2011
“On Theft: Stealing Beehives and Reclaiming the Land,” “African Scholar For a Day: Sarah
Berry”, Annual Conference, University of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia, PA. March 2011
Participant in “Israel and Global Warming”, Technology and Israeli Society Biennial
Workshop, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Sde-Boker, IL. December 2010
“Holy Technologies and ‘the Land of Milk and Honey’: The Making of Honey in Ottoman
Palestine” in “Food, Power and Meaning in the Middle East and the Mediterranean,” Ben-
Gurion University of the Negev. Be’er-Sheva, Israel. June 2010
“Recreating the Holy Land in Palestine, 1880-1926,” Israel Studies Association. Toronto, ON.
May 2010
“From Animals to Future Generations: Legitimizing Genetic Research in the WHO 1956 Study
Group,” Genetics and Genomics Graduate Students Symposium, University of Pennsylvania.
Philadelphia, PA. December 2008
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Teaching Assistant University of Pennsylvania (Fall 2011)
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Course: Science, Technology and War
Teaching Assistant University of Pennsylvania
Course: Global Health Systems
(Spring 2011)
Teaching Assistant University of Pennsylvania
Course: Global Health Systems
Teaching Assistant University of Pennsylvania
Course: Comparative Medicine
MEDIA
(Spring 2010)
(Fall 2009)
“The Invention of the Hebrew Cow”, TLV1 radio station, 1 January 2014 (online)
RESEARCH EXPERIENCE
Research Assistant Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Project: “Pasteur in Palestine: The Politics of the Laboratory,” June-Sep. 2007
Advisors: Prof. Nadav Davidovitch and Prof. Rakefet Zalashik
LANGUAGES
Hebrew – native
English – fluent
Arabic – advanced
French – intermediate
Spanish – intermediate
RESEARCH GROUPS AND SERVICE TO PROFESSION
SCHoM: History of Medicine Reading Group, University of Pennsylvania, 2009-2011
Environmental History Working Group, Philadelphia Area Center for History of Science,
2011-2012
Histories of Mandatory Palestine, Working Group, Tel-Aviv University, 2012-2014
STS Research Group, Safra Center for Ethics, Law, and Science, Tel-Aviv University, 2013-
2014
Reviewer, HAGAR Journal – Studies in Culture, Polity and Identities
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