Professor Stern, Harry Starr Professor of Classical and Modern Jewish and Hebrew Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature, was awarded the 2018 Walter Channing Cabot Fellowship award. He receives this distinction in recognition of his achievments and scholarly eminence in the field, including the publication The Jewish Bible: A Material History. Congratulations, Professor Stern!

Ali Asani, Professor of Indo-Muslim and Islamic Religion and Cultures, recently traveled to Pakistan:

The Daily Times, 01/19/2017:  Ali Sethi pays ode to regional poets...

Ann and Jim Rothenberg Fund for Humanities Research Grant
Nov. 2016: awarded $5,000
Project: “Harvard and Egyptian Archaeology: The Lost Ashton Sanborn Papers” Part 2
Peter Der Manuelian, NELC/Anthropology, Harvard Semitic Museum

Abstract: Recent discovery of the dig letters of HU–MFA Expedition staff member Ashton Sanborn in the Schlesinger Library has provided a treasure trove of archaeological data unknown to the scholarly world. Great progress has been made over the past six months, thanks to a spring 2016 Rothenberg grant, in scanning and...

His proposal Digital Epigraphy: A New Approach to Documenting Art and Archaeology is in support of Peter's Egyptian 200 class (fall 2016). The class is a graduate level course in the reading of primary Egyptian texts. This semester features readings in Old Egyptian, along with basic training in digital epigraphy.

The amount of the award is $10,762. More information on the Barajas Dean’s Innovation Fund for Digital Arts and Humanities may be found here.

Peter Manuelian, Philip J. King Professor of Egyptology, received a $6,000 grant from the Anne and Jim Rothenberg Fund for Humanities Research. His project "Harvard and Egyptian Archaeology: The Ashton Sanborn Papers", will process a Harvard-MFA Expedition Egyptologist’s letters currently housed in Schlesinger Library.

From 1905 to 1947, the Harvard University–Boston Museum of Fine Arts Expedition (HU–MFA) enjoyed spectacular success at twenty-three archaeological sites along the Nile, in both Egypt and Nubia (modern Sudan). Harvard is now engaged in reclaiming this archaeological...

We are pleased to announce that Justine Landau, Assistant Professor of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University, is the recipient of the World Award for the Book of the Year of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the field of Iranian studies, for her 2013 book, De rythme & de raison. Lecture croisée de deux traités de poétique persans du XIIIe siècle. Paris: Presses de la Sorbonne Nouvelle/ Institut Français de Recherche...

Congratulations, Professor Levenson!

The love of God is perhaps the most essential element in Judaism—but also one of the most confounding. In biblical and rabbinic literature, the obligation to love God appears as a formal commandment. Yet most people today think of love as a feeling. How can an emotion be commanded? Jon D. Levenson, Albert A. List Professor of Jewish Studies at Harvard University, recently took the time to answer questions about his new book, The Love of God: Divine Gift, Human Gratitude, and Mutual Faithfulness in Judaism.

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David Stern, Harry Starr Professor of Classical and Modern Jewish and Hebrew Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature has published Jewish Literary Cultures: Volume I, The Ancient Period (Penn State University Press).

This first installment in the three-volume Jewish Literary Cultures is a collection of essays and studies of diverse texts and topics in ancient Jewish literature, ranging from fables in the Bible and ancient Jewish...

Ancient Near East 103: Ancient Lives

Students in ANE 103, through music and taste connected with the ancients.
Barjamovic, a lecturer on Assyriology and instructor for Ancient Lives noted that the class demonstration with the musical instrument replicas sent a clear message that “music is one of the baselines of human existence. There isn’t a culture on this planet that doesn’t have music, and here we have the chance to hear a piece of it over a distance of 3,500 years.”

“It shows us,” Barjamovic added, “that what brings us together as essentially human...