Assistant Professor of Ancient Middle East Studies
About
I study the history and religions of the ancient Middle East, with a focus on categories such as gender and empire. I am especially interested in how modern history and politics affect our reconstruction of the past, including the legacy of Orientalism in Assyriology and biblical studies. My current work engages postcolonial theory to explore the relationship between the Neo-Assyrian empire and its client states. Recent publications include an analysis of the representation of foreigners in Assyrian art and a co-authored study on the wanderings of the Mesopotamian baby-killing demon Lamashtu.
Current projects:
I am currently completing my first book, Authors of Empire: Assyria, Judah, and the Dynamics of Imperial Exchange. I focus on ancient Judah as a locus of cultural exchange because of the repository of texts preserved in the Hebrew Bible. These texts provide a unique set of opportunities and challenges: on the one hand, they furnish a unique window onto the experiences of an Assyrian client state; on the other, their ongoing religious and cultural significance implicitly informs contemporary scholarship. I argue in particular that images of Assyria have been made and remade in analogy to 19th- and 20th-century experiences of empire. I also consider specific examples of Assyrian policy alongside the texts from Judah that creatively engage them. What emerges is a portrait of the diverse motivations and experiences of human actors on both sides of the imperial encounter.
A second project on gender and religious authority in Mesopotamia is guided by a similar set of questions: How do our assumptions about gender in the ancient Middle East affect our understanding of Mesopotamian religion and society? What new models can we develop to explore gender in antiquity? To address these questions, the work identifies groups within Mesopotamian religious institutions whose professional, social, and internal experiences of gender did not necessarily align.
Teaching interests:
Ancient Middle Eastern history and religion, the history of empire, archaeology, gender in antiquity, the Hebrew Bible and early Judaism
