Bilingualism & Emotion (Nur Kassem - Psychology)

Our group aims to investigate and produce knowledge on an understudied topic, the interplay of bilingualism and emotion when both languages are emotionally charged. The distinctive emotional experiences of these bilinguals bear important implications infiltrating their everyday lives. For example, such implications influence a bilingual in fields like education, jurisdiction, health, and psychotherapy. In such contexts, bilingual minorities speak the majority's language, a language that may have unique emotional effects. For instance, in Israel, where the sole official language is Hebrew, minorities experience and express themselves on a daily basis using their second language, Hebrew. We believe that enrolling in a multidisciplinary group will permit the participants to explore this topic through essays, discussions, and presentations. Eventually, we aim to produce a collaborative paper following the results of our joint work.

We invite researchers from a broad spectrum of disciplines to join us, including PhD and Second-degree students from the following fields: Social Work, Sociology, Political Science, Law, History, Literature, Theatre, Art, Gender Studies, Cultural Studies, and Health-Care Professionals.

For more information, please contact: nur.kassem@mail.huji.ac.il