Bassan is interested in Jewish literatures (biblical, Hebrew, and Yiddish) and in contemporary literary theory. His dissertation focuses on the concept of the non-conflictual. In particular, he explores the paradoxes of non-conflictual moments throughout the highly conflictual history of modern Hebrew literature. Contra the prevalent theoretical tendency to take the model of struggle as a fundamental paradigm, he asks what is at stake conceptually and politically in texts that position themselves beyond the binary of conflict and aim to weaken its import.

His publications include “The Thousand Plateaus of Uri Nissan Gnessin,” in Ot: A Journal of Literary Criticism and Theory (2012); and “Affirmative Weakening: Y. H. Brenner and the Weak Rethinking of the Politics of Hebrew Literature,” forthcoming inRethinking History.