Theoretical Foundations

My work is situated at the intersection of symbolic systems, narrative inquiry, and poststructuralist thought — drawing on cultural theory, qualitative research, and psychoanalytic insight to decode how meaning, identity, and emotion shape collective experience.

Note on Intellectual Engagement:
Inclusion does not imply full agreement.¹ In cases where frameworks erase Jewish self-determination — particularly through anti-Zionist narratives, BDS advocacy, or reductive colonial paradigms — I diverge clearly and without compromise.


Cultural & Media Theory

Culture · Power · Representation · Audience Research · Cultural Studies · Media Studies · Participatory Culture · Cultural Production · Cultural Mediation · Media and Communication Studies · Creative Industries · Cultural Globalization · Symbolic Economy · Symbolic Labor · Affective Economies · Political Economy · Affective Publics · Cultural Capital · Critical Media Theory · Media Affect · Semiotics of Identity · Cultural Memory · Aesthetic Politics · Narrative Power · Cultural Politics · Hegemony · Poststructuralism · Symbolic Interactionism · Sociology of Knowledge

Stuart Hall · Richard Dyer · Angela McRobbie · Dick Hebdige · Douglas Kellner · John Hartley · Brian McNair · Tony Bennett · John Fiske · Marita Sturken & Lisa Cartwright · Lev Manovich · Thomas Poell · Ien Ang · Nick Couldry · Tiziana Terranova · Sara Ahmed¹ · Mieke Bal · Geert Lovink · Joke Hermes · Cees Hamelink · Roland Barthes · Lynne Joyrich · Macarena Gómez-Barris · Avital Ronell · Diana Taylor · Trinh T. Minh-ha · Zizi Papacharissi · Lawrence Grossberg · Pierre Bourdieu · Jean Baudrillard · Anthony Giddens · Zygmunt Bauman


Psychoanalysis, Identity & Symbolic Life

Psychoanalysis · Lacanian Theory · Freudian Theory · The Unconscious · Repression · Symbolic Formation · Substitution · Object Relations Theory · The Maternal Function · Psychodynamic Branding · Self-Image and Projection · Masculinities · Identity and Branding · Gender Identity · Queer Theory · Symbolic Interactionism · Attachment Theory · Narrative Identity · Embodiment · Subjectivities · Developmental Trauma Theory · Symbolic Refusal · Care Time · Psychosocial Temporality

Sigmund Freud · Anna Freud · Carl Jung · Melanie Klein · Donald Winnicott · Julia Kristeva · Jessica Benjamin · Nancy Chodorow · Patrick Casement · Thomas Ogden · Adam Phillips · Marion Milner · Milton H. Erickson · Stephen Gilligan · Jean Houston · Alice Miller · Gabor Maté¹ · Karen Horney · Abraham Maslow · Erich Fromm · John Bowlby · Mary Ainsworth · Erik Erikson · Dan McAdams · Bessel van der Kolk · Stephen Porges · Otto Kernberg · Heinz Kohut · Wilfred Bion · Franz Alexander · Lisa Baraitser · Jacqueline Rose · Stephen Frosh · Lynne Segal · Joan Copjec · Amanda Anderson · Christopher Bollas


Social Psychology & Symbolic Dynamics

Social Psychology · Social Meaning-Making · Self and Other · Identity Formation · Symbolic Interactionism · Social Cognition · Narrative Self-Construction · Role Theory · Group Belonging · Attribution Patterns · Emotion Regulation · Internalized Oppression · Affective Dynamics · Boundary Regulation · Stigma and Status · Intersubjectivity · Psycho-Social Trauma · Social Identity Theory · Social Perception · Self-Schema · Impression Management · Stereotype Threat · Moral Emotion · Cultural Social Psychology

Erving Goffman · Henri Tajfel · John Turner · Hazel Markus · Claude Steele · George Herbert Mead · Jonathan Haidt · Susan Fiske · Shelley Taylor · Philip Cushman · Elliot Aronson · Solomon Asch · Stanley Milgram · Muzafer Sherif · Carol Dweck · Kurt Lewin · Albert Bandura · Harold Kelley · Fritz Heider · Leon Festinger


Illness, Health & Embodiment

Health & Illness · Narrative Medicine · Illness Narratives · Invisible Illness · ME/CFS · Long COVID · Post-Infectious Syndrome · Dysautonomia · Contested Illness · Diagnostic Ambiguity · Chronic Illness and Cultural Visibility · Disability Studies · Health Communication · Health Social Movements · Sociology of Health and Illness · Symbolic Misrecognition · Narrative Silencing · Psychosocial Harm · Illness as Metaphor · Semantic Injustice · Embodied Precarity · Somatic Narrative · Embodied Cognition · Psychosocial Disability · Temporal Disruption · Aesthetic Illness Politics

Arthur Frank · Susan Sontag · Rosemarie Garland-Thomson · Rita Charon · Byron Good · Cheryl Mattingly · Lennard J. Davis · Julie Livingston · Tobin Siebers · Alison Kafer · Thomas Hübl · Julie Rehmeyer · Brian Hughes · Sasha Nimmo · David Tuller · Ryan Prior · Meghan O’Rourke · Leonard Jason · Jennifer Brea · Whitney Dafoe · Annemarie Mol · Lisa Blackman · Angela Woods · Esther Jones · Petra Kuppers · Kelly Fritsch · Nirmala Erevelles


Urbanism, Culture & Symbolic Economies

Urban Studies · Urban Sociology · City & Culture · Urban Cultural Production · Creative Cities · Creative and Cultural Industries · Cultural Economy · Symbolic Economies · Place Identity · Urban Semiotics · Urban Symbolic Mediation · Cultural Geography · Cultural Planning · Agritourism & Cultural Development · Sharing Economy · New Urbanism · Everyday Practice · Emotional Landscapes · Geographies of Care · Spatial Belonging · Narrative Place-Making · Affective Infrastructure · Narrative Spatiality · Atmospheric Politics

Richard Florida · Sharon Zukin · Manuel Castells · Justin O’Connor · Don Slater · Henri Lefebvre · Doreen Massey · Ash Amin & Nigel Thrift · Michel de Certeau · Aihwa Ong · Richard Sennett · Martijn de Waal · Shannon Mattern · Avery Gordon · Jennifer Gabrys · Neil Brenner


Narrative & Symbolic Systems

Narrative Theory · Narrative Identity · Storytelling & Identity · Symbolic Systems · Meaning-Making Practices · Mythopoetics · Semiotic Structures · Cultural Temporality · Narrative Mediation · Narrative Psychology

Paul Ricoeur · Jerome Bruner · Laurel Richardson · Monika Fludernik · Dan McAdams · Jonathan Lear · Roland Barthes · Claude Lévi-Strauss · James Hillman


Platform Studies & Digital Mediation

Platform Capitalism · Algorithmic Agency · Interface Culture · Digital Labor · Audience Agency · Participatory Algorithms · Cultural Infrastructures · Digital Media Studies

Tiziana Terranova · Tarleton Gillespie · Safiya Noble · Nick Srnicek · José van Dijck · Zizi Papacharissi


Memory, Commemoration & Cultural Trauma

Cultural Memory · Memorialization · Trauma Discourse · Aesthetic Commemoration · Holocaust Representation · Affective History · Narrative Afterlife · Postmemory

Marianne Hirsch · Andreas Huyssen · Jan Assmann · Dominick LaCapra · Saidiya Hartman¹ · James E. Young · Eva Hoffman


Methodology & Interpretation

Discourse Analysis · Critical Discourse Analysis · Thematic Analysis · Narrative Inquiry · Autoethnography · Reflexive Practice · Ethnographic Observation · Stakeholder Interviews · Literature Reviews · Narrative Translation · Symbolic Reframing · Dream Analysis · Nondual Inquiry · Interpretivism · Dialogic Methodologies · Symbolic Systems Mapping · Phenomenology · Poetic Inquiry · Heuristic Inquiry · Psychoanalytic Ethnography · Narrative Refusal · Analytic Third · Social Constructionism

Marianne Hirsch · Carolyn Steedman · Veena Das · Paul Ricoeur · Laurel Richardson · Norman Denzin


Sociopolitical Thought & Cultural Critique

Critical Theory · Frankfurt School · Political Economy · Neoliberalism · Cultural Resistance · Affective Ideology · Symbolic Violence · Social and Cultural Capital · Cultural Policy · Structural Disavowal · Visibility Regimes · Aesthetic Citizenship · Biopolitics · Narrative Precarity · Psycho-Social Oppression · Slow Death · False Consciousness · Ideology Critique

Walter Benjamin · Theodor Adorno · Max Horkheimer · David Harvey · Fredric Jameson · Nancy Fraser · Antonio Gramsci · Wendy Brown · Herbert Marcuse · Louis Althusser · Georg Lukács · Slavoj Žižek · Lauren Berlant¹ · Jacques Rancière · Elizabeth Povinelli · Frantz Fanon · Saidiya Hartman¹ · Ann Stoler · Ruha Benjamin¹ · Tracy McMillan Cottom¹


¹ Divergence noted regarding Israel/Zionism.