THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS
My work lives at the intersection of symbolic systems, narrative inquiry, and a psychocultural and psychosocial approach to meaning-making.
I draw from cultural theory, interpretive social science, and psychoanalytic thought to understand how identity, emotion, and symbolic life shape the worlds individuals and institutions inhabit.
Note on Intellectual Engagement:
Inclusion does not imply full alignment. When frameworks erase Jewish self-determination — particularly through anti-Zionist narratives, BDS discourse, or reductive colonial binaries — I diverge clearly and without compromise.
I. CULTURE, MEDIA & SYMBOLIC POWER
Representation · Mediation · Identity · Audience
I study how culture produces meaning: through images, discourse, affect, and everyday practices.
This includes:
symbolic economies
cultural production and mediation
participatory cultures and digital publics
representational politics
audience agency and affective publics
subcultures, scenes, and vernacular creativity
the semiotics of identity and cultural memory
Guiding thinkers:
Stuart Hall · Angela McRobbie · Dick Hebdige · Richard Dyer · John Fiske · Marita Sturken & Lisa Cartwright · Ien Ang · Nick Couldry · Tiziana Terranova · Sara Ahmed¹ · Roland Barthes · Geert Lovink · Pierre Bourdieu · Jean Baudrillard · Zygmunt Bauman · Benedict Anderson · Sarah Thornton · Michel Maffesoli
II. PSYCHOANALYSIS & SYMBOLIC FORMATION
Identity · Desire · Repression · Symbolic Life
My interpretive lens draws on psychoanalytic theory — where psyche meets culture. I work with object relations, relational and trauma-informed theory, and selective Lacanian insights into symbolic structure to understand how identity, desire, and meaning are formed, constrained, and expressed.
I focus on:
the unconscious and symbolic formation
repression, substitution, and narrative coping
object relations and attachment
gender, fantasy, and identification
developmental trauma and dissociation
symbolic injury, muted identifications, and survival selves
inhibition, embodiment, and expressive constraint
fantasy as autonomic regulation
illness as symbolic semiosis
Guiding thinkers:
Freud · Klein · Winnicott · Kristeva · Lacan (symbolic structure) · Jessica Benjamin · Adam Phillips · Marion Milner · Erickson & Gilligan · Alice Miller · Gabor Maté¹ · Karen Horney · Bessel van der Kolk · Porges · Bollas · Laplanche
III. SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY & SYMBOLIC DYNAMICS
Self · Other · Group Life · Affect
My work often examines how collective meaning takes shape:
self/other formation
social cognition and affective dynamics
intersubjectivity and group belonging
internalized oppression and stigma
stereotype threat, impression management
narrative contagion and symbolic conflict
cultural social psychology
radicalization dynamics and projection
Guiding thinkers:
Goffman · Tajfel · Turner · Claude Steele · George Herbert Mead · Haidt · Aronson · Markus · Dweck · Lewin · Festinger
IV. ILLNESS, EMBODIMENT & SYMBOLIC PRECARITY
Chronic Illness · Disability · Narrative · Trauma
I study illness as both an embodied and symbolic experience — shaped by cultural visibility, misrecognition, and narrative distortion.
Key inquiries include:
ME/CFS, Long COVID, dysautonomia
invisible illness and contested legitimacy
illness narratives and autobiographical disruption
symbolic misrecognition and narrative silencing
embodied precarity and autonomic trauma
psychosocial disability and affective temporality
illness as metaphor, meaning, and resistance
Guiding thinkers:
Arthur Frank · Susan Sontag · Garland-Thomson · Rita Charon · Byron Good · Lennard J. Davis · Annemarie Mol · Lisa Blackman · Angela Woods
V. URBANISM, CULTURE & SYMBOLIC ECONOMIES
Cities · Atmospheres · Creative Life · Meaning in Space
My research investigates cities as symbolic systems:
creative cities and cultural industries
urban semiotics and symbolic mediation
place identity and affective atmospheres
grassroots cultural infrastructure
narrative spatiality and geographies of care
diasporic identity, indigeneity, and symbolic place-claims
vernacular creativity and localized cultural worlds
Guiding thinkers:
Richard Florida · Sharon Zukin · Manuel Castells · Doreen Massey · Lefebvre · de Certeau · Sennett · Shannon Mattern · Jennifer Gabrys · Neil Brenner
VI. NARRATIVE & SYMBOLIC SYSTEMS
Stories as Structure · Meaning · Regulation
Narrative is a regulatory system — a way the psyche and culture make coherence.
I work with:
narrative identity
cultural temporality
mythopoetics and semiotic structure
narrative rupture and reconstruction
symbolic systems as emotional architecture
Guiding thinkers:
Paul Ricoeur · Jerome Bruner · Hayden White · Claude Lévi-Strauss · Jonathan Lear · Roland Barthes · James Hillman
VII. PLATFORM STUDIES & DIGITAL MEDIATION
Algorithms · Platforms · Digital Publics
I examine:
platform capitalism
participatory algorithms
digital labor
interface culture
antisemitic digital ecosystems
narrative contagion and harassment cultures
Guiding thinkers:
Tiziana Terranova · Tarleton Gillespie · Safiya Noble · Nick Srnicek · José van Dijck · Whitney Phillips
VIII. MEMORY, COMMEMORATION & CULTURAL TRAUMA
Afterlives · Representation · Witnessing
Areas of focus:
postmemory and affective history
Holocaust representation and ethical witnessing
trauma discourse and narrative afterlife
aesthetic commemoration
Guiding thinkers:
Marianne Hirsch · Andreas Huyssen · Jan Assmann · LaCapra · Saidiya Hartman¹ · James E. Young · Eva Hoffman
IX. METHODOLOGY & INTERPRETATION
How I Read · How I Listen · How I Translate Meaning
My approach is interpretive, qualitative, and symbolic.
Core methods:
discourse and thematic analysis
narrative inquiry
ethnographic observation
stakeholder interviews
literature reviews
psychoanalytic ethnography
symbolic reframing and narrative translation
phenomenology and heuristic inquiry
meaning-pattern analysis
nondual inquiry and dream analysis
Guiding thinkers:
Geertz · Steedman · Veena Das · Denzin · Richardson · Ricoeur
X. SOCIOPOLITICAL THOUGHT & CULTURAL CRITIQUE
Power · Ideology · Representation
Areas of engagement:
critical theory & Frankfurt School
neoliberalism and cultural resistance
symbolic violence and structural disavowal
visibility regimes and aesthetic citizenship
ideology critique and narrative manipulation
misrecognition of indigeneity
decolonial narratives and political distortion
Guiding thinkers:
Benjamin · Adorno · Horkheimer · Harvey · Jameson · Fraser · Gramsci · Marcuse · Althusser · Žižek · Berlant¹ · Rancière · Povinelli · Fanon · Ruha Benjamin¹ · Tracy McMillan Cottom¹
¹ Divergence noted regarding Israel/Zionism.