Prof. Ofra Goldstein-Gidoni is the Head of the Zvi Yavetz School of Historical Studies at Tel Aviv University. Goldstein-Gidoni is an anthropologist specializing in Japan, she teaches in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology (Chair 2010-2013) and the Department East Asian Studies. She graduated from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London. Her research focuses on gender, family, “new fathers” and the balance between family and work in Japan. She has also studied cultural production and cultural globalization including the incorporation of New Age spirituality in Israeli mainstream.
Goldstein-Gidoni published two monographs that have become key texts in classes about Japanese society and culture and ethnographic research: Packaged Japaneseness: Weddings, Business and Brides, published by Hawaii University Press in 1997 and Housewives of Japan: An Ethnography for Real Lives and Consumerized Domesticity, published in 2012 (2015, second edition soft cover) by Palgrave Macmillan. Her research was also published in numerous articles in leading journals including Current Anthropology; Journal of Material Culture; Journal of Consumer Culture; Ethnos; Ethnology; Journal of Family Issues and Gender Work & Organization. Goldstein-Gidoni has been the recipient of numerous research grants including four grants from the National Science Foundation and grants from Japan Foundation. She was a Toyota visiting professor at the Center for Japanese Studies in the University of Michigan, a visiting fellow at The German Institute of Japanese Studies, Tokyo as well as at Sophia University, Tokyo. Goldstein-Gidoni is the Chair (Secretary General) of the Japan Anthropology Workshop (JAWS), the international association concerned with furthering the field of anthropology of Japan.