Rachel Cilia Werdmolder
Ph.D. Candidate
Education
- B.A. (Hons) Classical Hebrew, University of Malta, 2013
- M.St. in Jewish Studies, University of Oxford, 2015
The Department of Near Eastern Studies offers courses in the archaeology, history, languages and cultures of the Middle East, a region which has influenced the development of civilization and continues to play a vital role in today's world. Covering the ancient through modern periods, classes emphasize interdisciplinary analysis of the written and material records of the entire region. Some examples of Near Eastern studies include: Egyptian Civilization, Biblical Studies, Islamic Studies, and the Arab-Israeli Conflict.
The department excels in ancient and modern language instruction, especially Akkadian, Arabic, Biblical and modern Hebrew, Persian, Sumerian, and Turkish. Cornell’s world-class library has several collections dedicated to Near Eastern research—the Middle East and Islamic Studies Collection, the Jewish Studies Collection, among others—and students may partake of a wide range of Near Eastern lectures, colloquia, conferences, film screenings, concerts, dinners, and other events on campus.
Department website
Alexandra Blackman
Assistant Professor
Departments and programs
Links
Jason Sion Mokhtarian
Herbert and Stephanie Neuman Associate Professor and Director of Jewish Studies Program
Publications
Books
- Rabbis, Sorcerers, Kings, and Priests: The Culture of the Talmud in Ancient Iran (University of California Press, 2015)
- Medicine in the Talmud: Natural and Supernatural Remedies between Magic and Science (University of California Press, 2022).
Edited Volumes
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The Aramaic Incantation Bowls in Their Late Antique Contexts (under contract, Brown Judaic Studies). Co-edited with Alexander Marcus.
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Journal of Hebrew Scriptures, special edition on “Ancient Jewish Memories of Achaemenid Persia.” Co-edited with Kristin Joachimsen (PERSIAS research group).
- Iranian Studies, special edition on “Religious Trends in Late Ancient and Early Islamic Iran.” Volume 48.1 (2015). Co-edited with David Bennett.
Selected Articles
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“Families and Lists of Protections in the Aramaic Incantation Bowls” (forthcoming)
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“A Judeo-Persian Translation of the Book of Esther (Bibliothèque nationale de France MS Hébreu 127)” (forthcoming)
- “Material Culture of the Jews of Sasanian Mesopotamia.” In A Companion to Late Ancient Jews and Judaism: Third Century BCE to Seventh Century CE, eds. Naomi Koltun-Fromm and Gwynn Kessler (Hoboken: Blackwell Publishing, 2020), 145-166.
- “Zoroastrian Polemics against Judaism in the Doubt-Dispelling Exposition.” Mizan: Journal for the Study of Muslim Societies and Civilizations 3.1 (2018)
- “Clusters of Iranian Loanwords in Talmudic Folklore: The Chapter of the Pious (b. Ta’anit 18b-26a) in Its Sasanian Context.” In The Aggada of the Bavli and Its Cultural World, eds. Geoffrey Herman and Jeffrey L. Rubenstein (Providence: Brown Judaic Studies, 2018), 125-148.
- “Excommunication in Jewish Babylonia: Comparing Bavli Mo‘ed Qatan 14b-17b and the Aramaic Bowl Spells in a Sasanian Context.” Harvard Theological Review 108 (2015): 552-578.
- “Empire and Authority in Sasanian Babylonia: The Rabbis and King Shapur in Dialogue.” Jewish Studies Quarterly 19 (2012): 148-180.
Departments and programs
David Forman
Visiting Lecturer, Yiddish language
Publications
Book Translation
(2021) The Clever Little Tailor. Translation of Dos Kluge Shnayderl, 1933, by Solomon Simon. Kinder-Loshn Publications.
Education
- PhD (in Psychology), The University of Iowa, 2002
Departments and programs
Sasha Prevost
Ph.D. Candidate
Education
- M.F.A., 2019, University of Virginia, Creative Writing, Poe-Faulker Fellow
- M.A.I.S. with High Honors, 2016, University of Washington, Jackson School of International Studies, Comparative Religion
- M.Div., 2012, Harvard Divinity School
- B.A., 2009, University of Washington, Comparative Religion, History, minor in Near Eastern Studies (summa cum laude)
Departments and programs
Esra Akcan
Michael A. McCarthy Professor of Architectural Theory
Departments and programs
Links
Parisa Vaziri
Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature & Near Eastern Studies
Publications
"Racial Blackness and Indian Ocean Slavery" University of Minnesota Press, 2023.
"False Differends: Racial Slavery and the Genocidal Example." Philosophy Today, Feb. 2022
"No One's Memory: Blackness at the Limits of Comparative Slavery." Project on Middle East Political Science 44: Racial Formations in Africa and the Middle East: A Transregional Approach, Sept. 2021
"Thaumaturgic, Cartoon Blackface." Lateral: Journal of the Cultural Studies Association, "Cultural Constructions of Race and Racism in the Middle East and North Africa," issue 10, no.1, Spring 2021
“Arb’ain and Bakhshu’s Lament: African Slavery in the Persian Gulf and the Violence of Cultural Form.” Antropologia: Racial Questions: Historical Legacies and Contemporary Dynamics in Africa and the Middle East, vol. 7, no. 1, April 2020
“On ‘Saidiya’: Indian Ocean World Slavery and Blackness Beyond Horizon.” Qui Parle, vol. 28, no. 2, Dec. 2019
“Pneumatics of Blackness: Nasir Taqvai’s Bad-i Jin and Modernism’s Anthropological Drive.” Persian Literature and Modernity: Production and Reception. Edited by Hamid Rezaei Yazdi and Arshavez Mozafari. Routledge, 2018
“Windridden: On the Nonvalue of Nonidentification.” Liquid Blackness, vol. 3, no. 6, 2017, pp. 66-79.
“Blackness and the Metaethics of the Object.” Rhizomes: Cultural Studies in Emerging Knowledge, no. 29, 2016.
Education
Department of Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine
Departments and programs
Seema Golestaneh
Associate Professor
Publications
Books
Unknowing and the Everyday: Sufism and Knowledge in Iran, forthcoming with Duke University Press
Articles
“Open Sounds, Hidden Spaces: Listening, Wandering, and Literalism in Sufi Iran,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion, March 2022.
‘To be Transformed into Thought Itself’: Mystical and Political Becomings in the work of Ali Shariati," Philosophy and Global Affairs, Spring 2022.
“Text and Contest: Theories of Secrecy and Dissimulation in the Archives of Sufi Iran” in Sufism and Shi’ism in the Early Modern and Modern Eras, IB Tauris, 2019.
“Women’s Religious and Social Activism in Iran” in ed. Afsaruddin, Asma, Oxford Handbook on Islam and Women, forthcoming.
Education
- 2014 Columbia University, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Department of Anthropology. Ph.D. in Socio-Cultural Anthropology
- 2007 Columbia University. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Department of Anthropology. MA in Socio-Cultural Anthropology
- 2006 Barnard College. Department of Comparative Literature, Bachelor of Arts in Comparative Literature (Persian and French); Summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa.
Departments and programs
Marina Redina-Thomas
Ph.D. Candidate
Publications
- 2017 “Cuneiform Archives from Dūr-Enlillē: New Evidence on the Family of šandabakku of Kassite Nippur?” in Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Asian and African Studies, Vol. 9, Issue 4, 2017, pp. 365-376 [In Russian]
- 2017 “Notes on the Administrative System of Nippur as a Provincial Center of Kassite Babylonia” in Lands and Peoples of the Orient, Vol XXXVII, pp. 121-135 [In Russian]
- 2016 “State and International Relations in the Ancient Near East. Conference in Memoriam of Vladimir Aronovich Jacobson (St. Petersburg, September 23-24, 2015)” in Written Monuments of the Orient, Vol. 1(24), pp. 107-111 (with Dr. Ivan Bogdanov) [In Russian]
- 2015 “Who Ruled the Sacred City of Nippur? Šandabakku of Nippur in the Written Sources of the Kassite Period” in Journal of Ancient History ( Vestnik Drevney Istorii ), Vol. 4, pp. 87-103 [In Russian]
- 2015 “Archaeological Explorations of Ancient Mesopotamia: Cuneiform Archives from Kassite Nippur and Problems of Their Attribution” in Transactions of the Institute for the History of Material Culture, Russian Academy of Sciences, Vol. 12, pp, 121-129 [In Russian]
- 2015 “Problems and Perspectives of Studying the Kassite Period of Babylonian History” in Humanities and Sciences University Journal, Vol. 14, pp. 199-207 [In Russian]
- 2015 “Middle Babylonian Letters and Texts of Kudurru Stelae” in Assyriology and Egyptology in St. Petersburg State University. Curriculum Programs for Undergraduate and Graduate Level Students, pp. 19-21 [In Russian]
- 2015 “Enlil-kidinnī – šandabakku of Kassite Nippur” in The XXVIII International Conference on Historiography and Source Studies of Asia and Africa. Asia and Africa in the Changing World. 22-24 April, 2015. Abstracts, p. 312 [In Russian]
- 2014 “His Seal Has Been Applied”: Ways of Verifying Cuneiform Documents in Nippur during the Kassite Period” in Transactions of Jewish Studies. Philology and Cultural Studies. Issue 3, pp. 299-313 [In Russian]
- 2013 “Ethnic Diversity and Interactions of the Ethnic Groups in Kassite Babylonia on the Material of Nippur Archives” in The XXVII International Conference on Historiography and Source Studies of Asia and Africa. Local Heritage and Global Perspective. “Revolutionism” and “Traditionalism” in the East. April 24-26, 2013. Abstracts of Papers”, pp. 272-273 [In Russian]
- 2007 “Studying El-Amarna Archives as a Source on History of Kassite Babylonia” in The XXIV International Conference on Historiography and Source Studies of Asia and Africa. April 10-12, 2007. Abstracts of Papers”, pp. 231-233 [In Russian]
Education
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M.A. in Near Eastern Studies, 2021, Cornell University
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Candidate of Sciences, 2018, Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences, World History / Assyriology
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M.A., 2009, Herzen State Pedagogical University, Cultural Linguistics
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B.A., 2007, St. Petersburg State University, Oriental and African Studies / Assyriology
Departments and programs
Re’ee Hagay
Ph.D. Candidate
Publications
- Hagay, Re’ee. 2022. “Mourners are the Soundtrack of Life: Mourning, Time, and Aesthetic Geographies of the South in a Mizrahi Singer's Antibiography.” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, vol. 42, no. 1, pp. 63-76.
- Hagay, Re’ee; Boyarin, Jonathan. 2022. “Jewish Diaspora.” In Oxford Bibliographies in Jewish Studies. Ed. Naomi Seidman. New York: Oxford University Press.
Education
- M.A. in Near Eastern Studies, 2022, Cornell University
- M.A., 2016, Tel Aviv University, Sociocultural Anthropology
- B.A., 2013, Tel Aviv University, Sociology and Anthropology