Lecturer in Middle East Studies and Judaic Studies
he/him
About
Chris Mezger is a philologist and historian specializing in the languages and societies of Iraq, Syria, and the Levant in Late Antiquity and the early Islamic period, 200-1200 CE. He received his B.A. from the University of Southern California (2011), his M.A. from the Ohio State University (2018) and his M.Phil. from Yale University (2022). His research focuses on language contact and social change, with special attention to the overlap between language and religion as markers of social boundaries. His current project is a study of how early Arabic texts depict Aramaic speakers in the context of widespread language shift from Aramaic to Arabic, 600-1000 CE.
At U-M, Chris teaches language courses in Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic dialects, including Syriac, as well as courses in Judaic Studies about the history of Jewish communities in the Middle East, 1000 BCE – 1000 CE.
