Roman mosaic from Dougga, Tunisia (2nd/3rd century CE). Image source: Wikimedia Commons.
Roman mosaic from Dougga, Tunisia (2nd/3rd century CE). Image source: Wikimedia Commons.
I think this needs to be a multilayered conversation. On the one hand, religion is both used by elites for regulatory function, bureaucratic specialization, and legal structuring, and by non-elites to inspire collective action or to provide social cohesion.
Read MoreFunerary relief depicting shopkeepers (ca. 200-300 CE). Royal Ontario Museum (Image source: Wikimedia Commons).
Funerary relief depicting shopkeepers (ca. 200-300 CE). Royal Ontario Museum (Image source: Wikimedia Commons).
First, the initial three chapters, which cover the Roman Republic, read like a new history of Rome, one that shows how ingrained collective labor action really was in Roman society.
Read MoreDimensions 8-1/2 x 8-1/2 x 1/2 inches book
Medium offset lithograph on paper Accession Number LIB2000.432.1-.2
Copyright © Jenny Holzer / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Credit Line: Rosemary Furtak Collection, Walker Art Center Library
Dimensions 8-1/2 x 8-1/2 x 1/2 inches book
Medium offset lithograph on paper Accession Number LIB2000.432.1-.2
Copyright © Jenny Holzer / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Credit Line: Rosemary Furtak Collection, Walker Art Center Library
Prof. Sarah Bond is perpetually unsurprised at abuses of power, yet she is also perpetually ethically aggrieved by them. Her new book, Strike! is grounded in an ethical interest in the historical abuses of power on two levels: the abuse of power in the ancient Mediterranean world, and the witting or unwitting power of historians to write out of the record of the ancient Mediterranean the possibility of resistance, organizing, and the agency of laborers.
Read MoreThe following remarks were delivered at a book review panel on November 22, 2025, at the Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting in Boston.
Read MoreImage courtesy of John Penniman.
Image courtesy of John Penniman.
Earthquakes and Gardens is a deeply idiosyncratic book. It is experimental in a number of ways, and experiments do not always succeed—certainly not for every reader.
Read MoreImage courtesy of John Penniman.
Image courtesy of John Penniman.
Burrus urges us to curate earthquakes, but I also wonder if she asks us to consider whether we might be more earthquake than curator. How much of our control is an illusion? How different are we from the rest of the world?
Read MoreSaint Hilarion Castle, Cyprus. Image Source: Flickr.
Saint Hilarion Castle, Cyprus. Image Source: Flickr.
Burrus wildly and intentionally reads Jerome and Hilarion forward alongside contemporary art, histories of cartography, and modern sciences of geology and seismology. She cites artifacts and photographs from affiliated but not scholarly-verified sites in Cyprus.
Read MoreKarpaz, Northern Cyprus [Image: Wikimedia Commons].
Karpaz, Northern Cyprus [Image: Wikimedia Commons].
Using the idea of recursive connection to a locus—a place—that is also a time, a feeling, a sensation—Burrus invites us to see other connections beyond ancient hagiography and into other quasi-historical imaginariums.
Read MoreFotis Kontoglou, The Three Epochs of Hellenism (1933; National Gallery, Athens).
Fotis Kontoglou, The Three Epochs of Hellenism (1933; National Gallery, Athens).
In Earthquakes and Gardens, Burrus pulls a few short lines from the very end of Jerome’s Life of Hilarion and applies immense analytical pressure to them. It is a mode of historiography as spoliation.
Read MoreThis review panel features responses from a range of scholars working in Biblical Studies and late antiquity, originally shared at the 2025 Annual Meeting of the North American Patristics Society.
Read MoreImage courtesy of John Penniman.
Image courtesy of John Penniman.
Historians often try to reconstruct places; they map areas to give readers a sense of a whole. I am grateful for that work. But Burrus reminds us that humans do not really experience places as whole.
Read MoreWe may, in fact, be approaching a moment when historical literacy—much like philology—ought to be regarded as a basic expectation of rigorous scholarship on the Talmud. If so, the question before us is not only what the Talmud is, but also what forms of training, institutional support, and scholarly habits are required to render that question newly intelligible.
Read MorePirqoi b. Baboi, Cambridge University Library Cambridge England Ms. T-S Misc. 35.97
Pirqoi b. Baboi, Cambridge University Library Cambridge England Ms. T-S Misc. 35.97
The book historical question that I will focus on here is the question of the Talmud’s initial reception, of what we may call its canonization. And I mean this not in the sense of its coalescing as a work, though that is still profoundly unclear, but in the sense of how the Talmud became the most central work for defining what Judaism is and should be—well before, even a millennium before, it became a popular book and a part of popular piety.
Read MoreA volume of Talmud on display in the Jewish Museum of Switzerland in Basel. The volume brings together parts from the first two Talmud prints by Daniel Bomberg and Ambrosius Froben. CC BY-SA 4.0
A volume of Talmud on display in the Jewish Museum of Switzerland in Basel. The volume brings together parts from the first two Talmud prints by Daniel Bomberg and Ambrosius Froben. CC BY-SA 4.0
[O]ne major and simple contribution that Bavli Studies can make as a recognized (sub)field is to bring together scholars studying the Bavli’s formation and those studying its reception history.
Read MoreIn anticipation of the publication of the conference proceedings, the volume editors convened a roundtable discussion at the 2025 Association for Jewish Studies annual conference.At the roundtable, several scholars discussed the question "What is the Talmud?" and considered how diverse answers to that question have shaped and will continue to shape the field of Bavli Studies. The responses by Alyssa Gray, Simcha Gross, and Yitz Landes are presented below.
Read MoreIt is my hope that scholars who specialize in the study of texts will recognize that archaeology is not only relevant but indeed vital to their own research.
Read MoreT. Carisius. 46 BC. AR Denarius (17mm, 4.05 g, 4h). Rome mint. Head of Sibyl Herophile and seated sphinx. From the Alan J. Harlan Collection. Ex Numismatica Ars Classica 40 (16 May 2007), lot 558 via Wiki Commons.
T. Carisius. 46 BC. AR Denarius (17mm, 4.05 g, 4h). Rome mint. Head of Sibyl Herophile and seated sphinx. From the Alan J. Harlan Collection. Ex Numismatica Ars Classica 40 (16 May 2007), lot 558 via Wiki Commons.
The endurance of Sibyl’s authoritative voice invites analysis by students and scholars interested in gender and antiquity. Throughout the collection's literary, theological, and historical complexities, the one unifying constant is the sibyl herself, an ancient and respected woman prophet.
Read More"One difference between my first book and my most recent one is that this time I let my freak flag fly. My freak vegan flag. What Animals Teach Us about Families is, covertly, a memoir about my becoming a vegan.”
Read MoreThe Great Elm at Philips Academy Andover [Wikimedia]
The Great Elm at Philips Academy Andover [Wikimedia]
I wish I could say my move to secondary education was grounded in thoughtful reflection or a profound sense of calling that I’d known and honored my whole life. Instead, it was a kind of serendipitous accident that required a big leap of faith. Of course, so are most of the fun things that life sends our way.
Read MoreThe relationship between my writing and teaching is different now…. There is a bit more joy in my writing process than there used to be, and that communicates in my teaching. The time I take on a snow day to cultivate my own creative work is good for morale. Writing has always been a positive process for me, but it is especially so now that my professional future in the academy no longer hinges on my ability to quickly and unrelentingly generate monographs and articles.
Read More
![[Wikimedia]](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:American_Elm_at_Phillips_Academy,_Andover,_MA_-_May_2020.jpg){kind=link}