Ilana F. Silber is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Bar-Ilan University, Israel. Her major fields of interest are sociological theory and the sociology of gift-giving and philanthropy, to which she also brings a cross cutting engagement with comparative historical and interpretative cultural analysis. Current research projects explore various aspects of elite philanthropy, receiving as a facet of gift-relationships, and the theoretical interface between cultural sociology and French pragmatic sociology, with implications for the sociology of morality.
Her publications include: “Boltanski and the Gift: Beyond Love, Beyond Suspicion…?” in Simon Susen and Bryan Turner ed. The Spirit of Luc Boltanski: Essays in the “Pragmatic Sociology of Critique.” (London, New York: Anthem Press, 2014); “Neither Mauss nor Veyne? Peter Brown’s Interpretative Path to the Gift.” In Michael Satlow ed. The Gift in Antiquity. Studies in the Ancient World: Comparative Histories.(London: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013). pp. 202-220;”Emotions as Regime of Justification? The Case of Philanthropic Civic Anger,” European Journal of Social Theory 14, 3 (2011): 301-320; “Mauss, Weber et les trajectoires historiques du don,” Revue du M.A.U.S.S. 36 (2010); “Bourdieu’s Gift to Gift Theory: An Unacknowledged Trajectory,” Sociological Theory 27, 2 (2009); “Pragmatic Sociology as Cultural Sociology: Beyond Repertoire Theory?” European Journal of Social Theory 6 (2003); “Modern Philanthropy: Reassessing the Viability of a Maussian Perspective,” in Nick Allen and Wendy James, eds. Marcel Mauss Today (Oxford, New York: Berghahn, 1998); Religious Virtuosity, Charisma and Social Order: A Comparative Sociological Study of Monasticism in Theravada Buddhism and Medieval Catholicism. Cambridge Cultural Social Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995, rep. 2005.