RUTH KARTUN-BLUM

RUTH KARTUN-BLUM is a professor at the Department of Hebrew Literature (formerly Head of the Department) and the head of the Creative Writing Program at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. She is one of the leading authorities in this field, and author of the best selling book, Writers and Poets on Sources of Inspiration (Yediot Aharonot Press, Tel-Aviv, 2002).

She has published extensively, both in Hebrew and in English, seminal studies on Hebrew literature, literary theory and literary history. Her books include a historical survey of the poetry of Hibat Zion; a monograph on the poetry of Yocheved Bat-Miryam; two volumes on self-reference in art; studies on the poetry of Nathan Alterman and Lea Goldberg, and numerous essays and articles.

Her book Profane Scriptures - Reflections on the Dialogue With the Bible in Modern Hebrew Literature (Hebrew Union College Press, Cincinnati, 1999) deals with intertextuality with the scriptures in Israeli poetry and is accompanied by drawings by the renowned artist Menashe Kadishman.

Professor Kartun-Blum is a member of several editorial boards and has presided several times over the Committee for the Israeli Prize in Literature. She has initiated and is now the editor of a series of introductory books Musag, which seek to introduce the lexicon of literary terms to the general reading public, illustrating them in Hebrew texts. She is also the editor of Rytmus, the leading series of contemporary poetry in Israel.

Professor Kartun-Blum is a frequent visitor to major universities abroad, mainly Cambridge University and University College, London, where she is also the Hebrew University Visiting Professor at the Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies, and was awarded Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris Causa, from the Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati in March 2003.