Assoc-Prof. Gili Kugler, Ph.D.

Hannah Arendt Fellowship 2026 “Democracy”

Senior Fellowship | Biblical Mythology, Theology, Religion and Violence

Gili Kugler (Ph.D., The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) is a Senior Lecturer of Biblical Studies at the University of Haifa and a Humboldt researcher at the University of Göttingen. She is also an interdisciplinary member of the Tel Aviv Psychoanalytic Institute. She held a six-year position at the University of Sydney before joining the University of Haifa in 2021. Kugler’s research explores the literary-historical development of biblical texts and their theological, political, and psychological dimensions. It consists of topics such as: Chosenness; Narratives of violence and genocide; Familial imagery in theological discourse; Biblical mythology in dialogue with modern psychology; Suppressed and contradictory traditions in the Pentateuch; Intersection of history and politics in the Psalms; and Jewish and Christian reception of divine violence.

Personal profile at the University of Haifa
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Assoc-Prof. Gili Kugler, Ph.D., Hannah Arendt Fellow 2026

/ “The Voice of the People” – Democracy and Ochlocracy in Biblical Literature

Drawing on Hannah Arendt’s notion of the political act, our project approaches biblical literature as a site where questions of participation, authority, and moral agency are negotiated. We examine how the “voice of the people” in the Hebrew Bible serves both to legitimize and to destabilize political power. Although the Bible emerged within hierarchical and patriarchal societies, it contains numerous depictions of the people as active participants in political life: electing rulers, protesting authority, and being courted or manipulated by leaders. These portrayals move between collective agency and volatile mass behavior, or what can be called, democracy and ochlocracy.

We will use literary, historical-literary, and philological tools to trace how the texts navigate between these various tendencies within the evolving social and ideological frameworks of their time. We will ask when the people’s voice is presented as legitimate moral critique and when as an emotional, easily influenced crowd. Comparative study with Greek and Roman thought on democracy (e.g., Plato, Polybius) and its modern echoes (e.g., Tocqueville, Arendt) places these biblical depictions within a broader philosophical discussion about the role of populism for governing, and the ethics of collective power.

In revealing how ancient texts already grappled with the fragility of civic life and the danger of confusing moral right with divine or popular will, the project contributes to contemporary debates on the democracy’s vulnerabilities and on the continuous tension between the promise and danger of the people’s voice.

Host

University of Göttingen, logo

Partner

Prof. Dr Reinhard Müller, tandem partner 2026

Prof. Dr Reinhard Müller

Reinhard Müller is Professor of Old Testament in the Faculty of Theology at the University of Göttingen and currently serves as Dean of the Faculty. He is a full member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Lower Saxony. From 2014 to 2019, he was Professor of Old Testament in the Faculty of Protestant Theology at the University of Münster. His research focuses on Ugaritic and ancient Hebrew poetry, the book of Psalms, the book of Deuteronomy, and the prophetic literature of the Old Testament.