Head Fellow Rachel Neis (photo by D.C. Goings)

This fall, the Frankel Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies will host a prestigious group of scholars who will gather around the theme "Jews and the Material in Antiquity." They will be led by Head Fellow Rachel Neis.

The 2017–18 Frankel fellows and their fields of research are:

Todd Berzon, Bowdoin College, “Holy Tongues: The Materiality of Language in the Religious World of Late Antiquity”

Rick Bonnie, University of Helsinki, “Material Religion in Hasmonean-Roman Judaea: The Role of the Senses, Space, and Climate in Determining the Use of Synagogues and Miqva’ot”

Sean Burrus, Metropolitan Museum, “Image and Empire: Jewish Identities and Visual Arts under Rome”

Catherine Chin, University of California at Davis, “Life: The Natural History of an Early Christian Universe”

Deborah Forger, University of Michigan, “God's Embodiment in Jewish Antiquity”

Chaya Halberstam, King's University College at the University of Western Ontario, “Justice and Mercy Revisited: a Religious-Legal History of Judicial Impartiality”

Rachel Neis, University of Michigan, "The Reproduction of Species: Humans and Other Materials in Ancient Rabbinic 'Biology'"

Megan Nutzman, Old Dominion University, “Asclepius and Elijah: Ritual Healing in Roman and Late Antique Palestine”

Daniel Picus, Brown University, “Ink Sea, Parchment Sky: Reading Practices of Late Ancient Rabbis”

Michael Swartz, Ohio State University, “The Economics of Ritual in Judaism in Late Antiquity”

Juan Tebes, Catholic University of Argentina, “Fluid Cultural Boundaries in Idumaea and the Formation of Jewish and Idumaean Identities”