Interim Director, Center for MIddle Eastern and North African Studies; George G. Cameron Professor of Ancient Near Eastern Civilization and Languages and Civilizations
About
Current research
My research focuses on the languages and intellectual and social histories of the cuneiform cultures the ancient Middle East. Which means that the themes of my scholarship cover a wide range of topics including sociolinguistics; education; multilingualism; translation; language contact/change; scribal practices; lexicography; scholarship; and the histories of science, technology, and medicine. I choose to study and teach the ancient Middle East (roughly ancient Iraq and Syria) because of the vast amounts of contextualized data available mostly on hundreds of thousands of clay tablets of various kinds over three thousand years. There is no shortage of research possibilities.
My book Translation as Scholarship: Language, Writing, and Bilingual Education in Ancient Babylonia and previous research investigated the varieties of cuneiform scribal practices, with special focus on the nature of translation as scholarly knowledge and the intersection and influence of various scribal corpora upon each other (for example, the use of lexical texts in literature or commentaries).
Current projects
I am deeply fascinated in examining wherever my interests intersect. My current project has its goal telling the 3,000+ year history of the Sumerian language, especially how and why groups and individuals used Sumerian. Sumerian is probably humanity’s earliest recorded language, written on clay tablets more than 5,000 years ago. At some point, Sumerian fell out of use as a spoken vernacular, but still featured as an important language for another 2,000 years. My work narrates how this language was used to the benefit of kings, scholars, bureaucrats, storytellers, and religious officials.
My other ongoing projects include work on a Babylonian scholar from the 4th Century CE, various studies on Sumerian language and texts, structural and lexicographic linguistic contact between Sumerian and various Semitic languages, and the role of language in ritual, magical, and religious performance. I am also completing critical editions of some 150 lexical tablets, now in a collection in Germany.
Teaching interests
Like my research, my teaching covers a variety of topics, histories, and geographies. In addition to courses on Sumerian, I teach a course “Science and Technology in the Ancient Middle East” (MIDEAST 341; offered every winter), a course on the languages of the ancient Mediterranean (MIDEAST 342 “Inscribing Power: Language and Writing in the Ancient World”), and other courses on the history, languages, literatures, and cultures of the ancient Middle East. I also teach two large undergraduate courses which focus on broad themes over the whole history of the Middle East. Every fall, I teach a course on the history of medicine in the Middle East (MIDEAST 201 “Madness, Medicine, and Magic in the Middle East”). Every winter, I teach the history and politics of sport, with a focus on soccer/football (MIDEAST 203 “Sports and Games in the Middle East”).
Graduate program
As the Director of Graduate Studies in MES, I am committed to providing as much structure and support as possible to ensure our graduate students succeed, however they choose to define success. Students interested in our program may contact me directly (mes-dirgradstudies@umich.edu) or reach out to our graduate student services staff (mes-gradservices@umich.edu). Students wishing to pursue a PhD in ancient Middle East history/Assyriology may contact me or Professor Jessie Degrado (jdegrado@umich.edu).
