Nostalgia for a Foreign Land

Roman Katsman was born in the USSR and has lived in Israel since 1990. He is a Professor in the Department of Literature of the Jewish People in Bar-Ilan University. Katsman is the author of number of books and articles about Hebrew and Russian literature, particularly about Jewish-Russian and Russian-Israeli literature and thought. He has worked on the theoretical problems of mythopoesis, chaos, nonverbal communication, sincerity, alternative history, and humor. His most recent books, Elusive Reality: A Hundred Years of Russian-Israeli Literature (1920-2020), (2020, in Russian) and Nostalgia for a Foreign Land (2016, in English), examine the Russian-language literature in Israel. Other major publication include Laughter in Heaven: Symbols of Laughter in the Works of S.Y. Agnon, in Hebrew (2018), Literature, History, Choice: The Principle of Alternative History in Literature (2013), At the Other End of Gesture. Anthropological Poetics of Gesture in Modern Hebrew Literature (2008), Poetics of Becoming: Dynamic Processes of Mythopoesis in Modern and Postmodern Hebrew and Slavic Literature (2005), The Time of Cruel Miracles: Mythopoesis in Dostoevsky and Agnon (2002) and others.