Dr. Dvir Tzur received his Ph.D. in Hebrew Literature from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.  His research focuses on the connection between contemporary Hebrew literature and Israeli culture and society. His dissertation, entitled "The Two Faces of Home and the Field: Poetics of Space in Yizhar Smilansky's Preliminaries and Zalhavim", explored the relations between geographic space and its literary representation. It focused on the issues of home, land, nativism, nostalgia and retrospective writing. His current research is focused on the nexus between border-crossing and mysticism in contemporary Hebrew literature.

Prior coming to UCLA, Dvir was a postdoctoral fellow at the Bernard Cherrick Center for the Study of Zionism, the Yishuv and the State of Israel.  During his graduate studies, he was a member of the "Jews and Cities" research group in Scholion - an interdisciplinary research center in Jewish Studies at the Hebrew University. In addition to his scholarly publications, Dvir is the author of two novels: Inverted Letters and Regina's Orchard (Babel Publishers), and is currently working on a third.  He also holds an M.A in Contemporary Jewry studies and a B.A in Communication and Sociology & Anthropology from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.