PhD dissertations submitted in the MELC department are listed below. Until 2021, degrees were awarded in "Near Eastern Studies" or "Near Eastern Religions". Prior to the early 1970s, degrees were awarded in "Near Eastern Languages".
Where possible, links to online repositories such as UC eScholarship or ProQuest have been provided.
2020s
2021-22
Breger, Gil, Ziqpu-stars and Cuneiform Knowledge: Meaning, Applications, Contexts
Advisor: Francesca Rochberg
Johnston, Kia Marie, Unseen Hands: Coffin Production at Akhmim, Dynasties 21-30
Adviser: Rita Lucarelli
Brownstein, Shmaryahu, Voicing the Shekhinah: The Habad Discourse in the Seventh Generation
Fateme Montazeri, Hafiz and the Safavids: Cultural History of a Persianate Controversy
Advisor: Wali Ahmadi
Rezakhany, Hassan, Masters of Paradox: Paradoxes of Self-reference in the Islamic World
Advisor: Asad Q. Ahmed
Tsung, Pei-Chen, Interpreting the Theory of ‘Abd al-Qāhir al-Jurjānī from the Perspective of Cognitive Linguistics
Advisers: Margaret Larkin
2020-21
Stover-Kemp, Jenna, Forgetting to Remember: Theorizing the Role of the Forgotten in the Production of the Hebrew Bible
2019-20
Ehteshami, Amin, The Pivot to Canonisation: Fayḍ Kāshānī and the Safavid Hadith Discourse
Adviser: Asad Q. Ahmed
Even-Nur, Ayelet, Radical Abandon: In-Between Agency and Self-Attenuation in Israel/Palestine
Advisers: Margaret Larkin and Chana Kronfeld
Istanbulli, Linda, Beyond the Nation: The Literary Afterlife of the Damascus Spring in the 21st Century Syrian Novel
Adviser: Margaret Larkin
Jensen, Victoria, The Cemeteries of Deir el-Ballas: Non-elite burials of the 17th-19th Dynasties and their relationship to the royal palace
Adviser: Rita Lucarelli
2010s
2018-19
Fani, Aria, Becoming Literature: The Formation of Adabiyat as an Academic Discipline in Iran and Afghanistan (1895-1945)
Advisor: Wali Ahmadi
Lawson Pruitt, Madeline, Cultural Identity, Archaeology, and the Amorites of the Early Second Millennium BCE: An Analytical Paradigmatic Approach
Advisor: Benjamin Porter
2017-18
Stephanie Brown, Living on the Edge of Empire: Edomite Households in the First Millennium B.C.E.
Advisor: Benjamin Porter
Muhammad Faruque, The Labyrinth of Subjectivity: Constructions of Selfhood in Islamic Philosophy (1570-1938)
Advisor: Asad Q. Ahmed
Daniel Fisher, Memories of the Ark: Texts, Objects and the Construction of the Past
Advisor: Ronald Hendel
Roy Fisher (Near Eastern Religions), Locating Matthew in Israel
Advisor: Daniel Boyarin
Jessica Elisabet Kaiser, Raising the Dead: A Bioarchaeological Investigation of the Wall of the Crow Cemetery, Giza
Advisor: Carol Redmount
2016-17
Andrea Creel, Connectivity on the Edge of Empire: Movement, Liminality, and Ritual in the Southern Levantine Drylands
Advisor: Benjamin Porter
Eduardo A. Escobar, Technology as Knowledge: Cuneiform Technical Recipes and the Material World
Advisor: Francesca Rochberg
Martin C. Weber, Changing Environments, Social Adaptations, Divergent Trajectories: The Application of Socio-Natural Systems Thinking and Geospatial Modeling to the Late Bronze/Iron Age Transition in West-Central Syria, ca. 1350-750 BCE
Advisor: Benjamin Porter
Eyal Bassan, Gestures of Undoing: The Desire for the Neutral in Modern Hebrew Literature
Advisor: Chana Kronfeld
Sarah Frances Levin, Narrative Remembrance: Close Encounters between Muslims and Jews in Morocco’s Atlas Mountain
Advisors: Charles Briggs and Chana Kronfeld
Joseph Dov Rosen, The Talmudic Zohar: Midrash Ha-Ne'lam and Medieval Jewish Interdisciplinarity
Advisor: Daniel Boyarin
Eli Rosenblatt, Enlightening the Skin: Travel, Race and Rabbinic Intertextuality in Yiddish Literature 1860-1960
Advisor: Chana Kronfeld
Hanna Tzuker-Seltzer, Retrospectivity as an Ethical Stance: Revisiting the Zionist Dream in Israeli Fiction and Film
Advisor: Chana Kronfeld
2015-16
Cruz, Anna, Modes of Loss: al-Andalus in the Arabic Poetic Imagination
Advisor: Muhammad Siddiq
Yedidya Etzion, Philo of Alexandria’s Jewish Law: Uncovering the Foundations of a Second-Temple System of Jewish Law
Advisor: Daniel Boyarin
Anna Elena Torres, With an Undone Shirt (Mit a tseshpilyet hemd): Anarchist Modernism in Yiddish Literature
Advisor: Chana Kronfeld
2014-15
Antonietta Catanzariti (NES)
The Archaeology of Economic Systems in the Central Levant during the Middle Bronze Age: A Case study from Kamid el-Loz (Lebanon)
Advisors: Benjamin Porter and Marian Feldman
Rachel A. Friedman, Clarity, Communication, and Interpretability: Theorizing Language in al-Bāqillānī’s (d. 1013) I‘jāz al-Qur'ān and Uṣūl al-Fiqh Texts
Advisor: Margaret Larkin
Ruth Haber, Rabbis on the Road: Exposition En Route in Classical Rabbinic Texts
Advisor: Daniel Boyarin
Elizabeth Claire Saylor (NES), A Bridge Too Soon: The Life and Works of 'Afifa Karam: the First Arab American Woman Author
Advisor: Margaret Larkin
2013-14
Samad Josef Alavi (NES)
The Poetics of Commitment in Modern Persian: A Case of Three Revolutionary Poets in Iran
Advisor: Wali Ahmadi
Christian Andre Crisostomo (NES), Bilingual Education and Innovations in Scholarship: The Old Babylonian Word List Izi
Advisor: Niek Veldhuis
Amy Genevive Dibley (NES)
Abraham’s Uncircumcised Children: The Enochic Precedent for Paul’s Paradoxical Claim in Galatians 3:29
Advisor: LeAnn Flesher
Lissette Marie Jimenez (NES)
Transfiguring the Dead: The Iconography, Commemorative Use, and Materiality of Mummy Shrouds from Roman Egypt
Advisor: Carol Redmount
Kiersten Ashley Neumann (NES), Resurrected and Reevaluated: The Neo-Assyrian Temple as a Ritualized and Ritualizing Built Environment
Advisors: Marian Feldman and Francesca Rochberg
Riki Ophir (Jewish Studies)
Why Read Poems in Such Hard Times? Sociopolitical History and Aesthetic Commitment in Modern Hebrew, Yiddish and German Poetry
Advisor: Chana Kronfeld
Yosefa Raz (Jewish Studies), Weak Prophecy: Recasting Prophetic Power in the Classical Hebrew Prophets and in Their Modern Reception
Advisor: Ron Hendel
David Michel Rosenberg-Wohl (Jewish Studies)
Reconstructing Jewish Identity on the Foundations of Hellenistic History: Azariah de’ Rossi’s Me’or ‘Enaym in the Late 16th Century Northern Italy
Advisor: Erich Gruen
Kevin Lewis Schwartz (NES), Bâzgasht-i Adabî (Literary Return) and Persianate Literary Culture in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Iran, India, and Afghanistan
Advisor: Wali Ahmadi
Terry-lynn Tanaka (NES), Dress and Identity in Old Babylonian Texts
Advisor: Niek Veldhuis
Mira Beth Wasserman, The Humanity of the Talmud: Reading for Ethics in Bavli Avoda Zara
Advisor: Daniel Boyarin
2012-13
Constance Ellen Gane (NES), Composite Beings in Neo-Babylonian Art
Advisor: David Stronach
Ahmed Zildzic (NES),The Friend and Foe: The Early Ottoman Reception of Ibn 'Arabi
Advisor: Hamid Algar
2012
Dana DePietro (NES)
Piety, Practice and Politics: Ritual and Agency in the Late Bronze Southern Levant
Advisor: Marian Feldman
Cristina Rhiannon Graybill (NES)
Men in Travail: Masculinity and the Problems of the Body in the Hebrew Prophets
Advisor: Robert Alter
Alison Lori Joseph (NES), The Portrait of the Kings and the Historiographical Poetics of the Deuteronomistic Historian
Advisor: Ronald Hendel
Anaita Khudonazar (NES), Generational Politics: Narratives of Power in Central Asia’s Visual Culture
Advisor: Margaret Larkin
Elizabeth Joanna Minor (NES), The Use of Egyptian and Egyptianizing Material Culture in Nubian Burials of the Classic Kerma Period
Advisor: Carol Redmount
Barbara A. Richter (NES), The Theology of Hathor of Dendera: Aural and Visual Scribal Techniques in the Per-wer Sanctuary
Advisors: Jacco Dieleman and Carol Redmount
Samuel F. Thrope (Jewish Studies), Contradictions and Vile Utterances: The Zoroastrian Critique of Judaism in the Škand Gumānīg Wizār
Advisor: Martin Schwartz
2011
Moeen Afnani (NES)
Unraveling the Mystery of the Hidden Treasure: The Origin and Development of a Hadith Qudsi and its Application in Sufi Doctrine
Advisor: Hamid Algar
Laurent Dissard (NES),
Submerged Stories on the Sidelines of Science: Archaeology and Politics on the Margins of the Keban Dam Rescue Project (1966-1975) in Eastern Turkey
Advisor: Marian Feldman
Stephanie Langin-Hooper (NES), Beyond Typology: Investigating Entanglements of Difference and Exploring Object-Generated Social Interactions in the Terracotta Figurines of Hellenistic Babylonia
Advisor: Marian Feldman
Hasan Karatas (NES), The City as a Historical Actor: The Urbanization and Ottomanization of the Halvetiye Sufi Order by the city of Amasya in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries
Advisor: Hamid Algar
Zvi Septimus (Jewish Studies), The Poetic Superstructure of the Babylonian Talmud and the Reader It Fashions. Eastern European Jewish Culture and the Re-imagination of Folk Performance
Advisor: Daniel Boyarin
Zehavit Stern (Jewish Studies),
Eastern European Jewish Culture and the Re-imagination of Folk Performance
Advisor: Robert Alter
2010
Cindy Lee Ausec (NER), Gods Who Hear Prayers: Popular Piety or Kingship in Three Theban Monuments of New Kingdom Egypt
Advisor: Carol Redmount
Mona El Sherif (NES),
Cairo-Paris: The Urban Imaginary of the Self
Advisor: Margaret Larkin
Karin Roberta Kroenke (NES), The Provincial Cemeteries of Naga ed-Deir: A Comprehensive Study of Tomb Models Dating from the Late Old Kingdom to the Late Middle Kingdom
Advisor: Carol Redmount
Jean Li, Jean (NES), Elite Theban Women in the Eighth-Sixth Centuries BCE in Egypt: Status, Identity and Mortuary Practice
Advisor: Carol Redmount
2000s
2009
Mark Anthony Avila (NES)
Treading Upon Snakes: The Sumerian and Akkadian Snake Incantations from the Ur III to the Old Babylonian Periods
Advisor: Niek Veldhuis
Catherine P. Foster (NES)
Household Archaeology and the Uruk Phenomenon: A Case Study from Kenan Tepe, Turkey
Advisor: Marian Feldman
Nathalie Khankan (NES)
Breathing Sun-Drenched Horizons: The Possibility of Poetry in Post-Oslo Palestine
Advisor: Margaret Larkin
Sabrina Sonia Maras (NES)
Iconography, Identity and Inclusion: the Winged Disk and Royal Power under Darius the Great
Advisor: David Stronach
Seyed Shahabedin Mesbahi (NES)
The Reception of Ibn 'Arabi's School of Thought by Kubrawi Sufis
Advisor: Hamid Algar
Shih, Shang Ying (NES), New Approaches to Ancient Egyptian Visual Culture -- A Case Study: Ramesside Queens at the Nexus of Gender, Sexuality, and Spectatorship
Advsor: Carol Redmount
2008
Brian Ashley Brown (NES)
Monumentalizing identities: North Syrian urbanism, 1200-800 BCE
Michael T. T. Castori (NER)
"Israel and the Nations" in the Mekhilta of Rabbi Ishmael and Origen's Homilies on Exodus: A study in biblical interpretation
Eliyahu Stern (Jewish Studies)
Elijah of Vilna and the making of modern rabbinic Judaism
Julia Watts Belser (Jewish Studies)
Between the human and the holy: The construction of Talmudic theology in Massekhet Ta’anit
Cyrus Ali Zargar (NES)
Aesthetic principles of Islamic mysticism: Beauty and the human form in the writings of Ibn 'Arabi and 'Iraqi
2007
Ali, Mukhtar Hussain. Qaysari’s Muqaddima to his Sharh Fusus al-hikam: A translation of the first five chapters together with a commentary on some of their themes.
Codella, Kim Christopher. Achaemenid monumental gateways at Pasargadae, Susa and Persepolis.
Liebhaber, Samuel Joseph. Bedouins without Arabic: Language, poetry and the Mahra of Southeast Yemen.
Medoff, Louis Abraham. Ijtihad and renewal in Qur’anic Hermeneutics: An analysis of Muhammad Husayn Tabataba’i’s al-Mizan fi Tafsir al-Qur’an
Neale, Harry Stuart. Sufism, godliness and popular Islamic storytelling in Farid al-Din ‘Attar’s Tadkiratu-l-‘awliya’.
Nitschke, Jessica Lynn Nager. Perceptions of culture: Interpreting Greco-Near Eastern hybridity in the Phoenician homeland.
2006
Alvarez-Mon, Javier. The Arjan tomb: At the crossroads between the Elamite and the Persian empires.
Ayvazian, Alina. Urartian glyptic: New perspectives.
Farrin, Raymond Kenneth. Reading beyond the line: Organic unity in classical Arabic poetry.
Finkin, Jordan David. "Jewish discourse" and the Hebraic subtext in the development of Yiddish literature and culture.
Kadhim, Abbas K. Politics and theology of Imami Shi’a in Baghdad in the 5th/11th century.
Kann, Nitsa. Kabbaliterature: Post/modern Hebrew literature and its kabbalistic precursors.
Kiser-Go, Deanna. A stylistic and iconographic analysis of private post-Amarna period tombs at Thebes.
Mendoza, Barbara. Everlasting servants of the gods: Bronze priests of ancient Egypt from the Middle Kingdom to the Graeco-Roman period.
Millstein, Henry Morrison. Embodying empire: Rabbinic and early Christian representations of Roman power.
Saleh, Heidi. Investigating ethnic and gender identities as expressed on wooden funerary stelae from the Libyan period (c. 1069-715 B.C.E.) in Egypt.
2005
Collins, William Frederick. Cultural transmission, exchange and complex society in late fourth and early third millennium BCE inland West Syria.
Davaran, Fereshteh. Continuity in Iranian identity: A study of Andarz and Adab.
Jalali, Bahar. Afghanistan: 1963-1973.
Mousavi, Seyed Ali. The central Alborz region in the second millennium B.C.: An inter-regional study of archaeological patterns and possible interpretations.
2004
Angali, Koorosh. The Angali dialect.
Dolgopolskii, Serguei Boris. The rhetoric of the Talmud in the perspective for post-structuralism.
Havrelock, Rachel Sharon. The Jordan River: Crossing a biblical boundary.
Pettigrew, Mark Fraser. The wonders of the ancients: Arab-Islamic representations of ancient Egypt.
Radwan, Noha Mohamed. Redefining the canon: Shi'r al-'Ammiyya and modernism in Arabic poetry.
2003
Kaiser, Kevin Robert. Water, milk, beer and wine for the living and the dead: Egyptian and Syro-Palestinian Bes-vessels from the New Kingdom through the Graeco-Roman Period.
MacGregor, Sherry Lou. Women in the Neo-Assyrian world: Visual and textual evidence from palace and temple.
2002
Bazian, Hatem Ahmad. Al-Quds in Islamic consciousness: A textual survey of Muslim claims and rights to the sacred city.
Nassiri, Giv. Turco-Persian civilization and the role of scholar's travel and migration in its elaboration and continuity.
Nikaido, Scott Ken. Intertextuality and ideology in the Hagar narratives.
Sandel, Margaret Anne. Understanding religions language: An integrated approach to meaning.
Seeman, Christopher Joseph. Rome and Judaea in transition.
Sheldon, Linda Jean. The Book of Job as Hebrew theodicy: An ancient Near Eastern
inter-textual conflict between law and cosmology.
2001
Bonogofsky, Michelle A. An osteo-archaeological examination of the ancestor cult during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B Period in the Levant.
Daum, Robert Alan. Describing Yavneh: The foundational traditions of rabbinic Judaism.
Dreyfus, Renee Beller. A purely Assyrian art: Ivories carved in the ‘Assyrian style'.
Ghanimati, Soroor. Kuh-e Khwaja: A major Zoroastrian temple complex in Sistan.
Hamdouni Alami, Mohammed. Al-Bayan wa l-Bunyan: Meaning, poetics, and politics in early Islamic architecture.
Kadish, Ruti. Mothers and soldiers: Israeli lesbian and gay negotiations of Jewish, national, and sexual identity.
Margalit, Natan. Life containing texts: The Mishnah's discourse of gender, a literary/anthropological analysis.
Oblath, Michael David. The Exodus itinerary sites: Their location from the perspective of the biblical sources.
Pinsker, Shachar Mordechai. "Old wine in new flasks": Rabbinic intertexts and the making of modernist Hebrew fiction.
2000
Alauddeen, Hashim Ali. The Martyrdom of Imam Husayn at Karbala: Ziyarat and Interpretations.
Chaver, Yael. "What must be forgotten": Yiddish literature in Zionist Palestine.
Hoffman, Matthew B. Reclaiming Jesus and the construction of modern Jewish culture.
Leveen, Adriane Beth. Monumental tasks: The problem of memory in the book of Numbers.
Ludlow, Jared Warner. A narrative critical study of the two Greek Recensions of "The Testament of Abraham".
Medoff, Louis Abraham. A survey of the history of Islam in China.
Miller, Brian Allan. The lover's way: A critical comparison of the Nazm al-suluk by Ibn al-Farid with the Qasidih-yi Varga’iyyih by Baha’ullah.
Nakanishi, Yumiko, The art of Miran: A Buddhist site in the kingdom of Shanshan
Advisor: Guitty Azarpay
Stewart, David Tabb. Ancient sexual laws: Text and intertext of the biblical Holiness Code and Hittite Law.
Tzamir, Hamutal. The Israeli statehood generation and women's poetry in the fifties and sixties: Poetry, gender and the nation-state.
1990s
1999
Barbanes, Eleanor. Heartland and province: Urban and rural settlement in the Neo-Assyrian Empire.
Goodarzi-Tabrizi, Shoki. The worked bone remains of Hallan Cemi Tepesi, an early Neolithic site in Southeastern Turkey.
Kroenke, Karin Roberta. Type II river crafts: Description and classification of ancient Egyptian model boats of the first intermediate period through the New Kingdom.
Ross, Jennifer Carol. The golden ruler: Precious metals and political development in the third millennium B.C. Near East.
Wong, Diana Pickworth. Stamp seals of the ancient Yemen.
Yaqub, Nadia Gail. Drinking from the well of poetry: Tradition, composition, and identity in the oral Palestinian poetry duel.
1998
Angali, Koorosh. Afsan i buz ud muy: 'The fable of the goat and the date-palm'.
Brookes, Douglas Scott. Tables of delicacies concerning the rules of social gatherings: An annotated translation of Gelibolulu Mustafa Ali’s Meva’idu’n- Nefa’is fi Kava’idi’l-Mecalis.
Hildenbrand, Michael Dean. Structure and theology in the holiness code.
Simonds, Matthew Wiley. Ali b. Maymun: An early 16th Century Sufi saint and critic of the Ulama with an edition of Alwan al-Hamawi’s Mujli al-huzn an al-mahzun fi manaqib al-shaykh al-sayyid al-sharif Abi al-Hasan Ali b. Maymun.
1997
Estes, Allen Leland. Enforcement practices in Ur III Lagash and 18th Century BC Mari.
Johnson, Willis Harrison. Between Christians and Jews: The formation of anti-Jewish stereotypes in Medieval England.
Mehendale, Sanjyot, Begram: New perspectives on the ivory and bone carvings
Advisors: Guitty Azarpay & David Stronach
Mendoza, Barbara. Iconography and chronological development of the fisherman and fowler in ancient Egyptian tomb painting and relief: A contrast between tomb owner and marsh laborer.
Samman, Antoine. Ancient Syrian society in the age of Iamhad (ca. 2000-1500 B.C.): Archaeological and glyptic studies.
Shih, Shang-Ying. Death in Deir el-Medina: A psychological perspective.
von Schlegell, Barbara Rosenow. Sufism in the Ottoman Arab world: Shaykh ‘Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulusi (d. 1143/1731).
1996
Afshar, Yashar. Cultural and linguistic transition from Sasanian Persia to Islamic Iran.
Greaves, Sheldon Wilde. The power of the word in the ancient Near East.
Seidel, Jonathan Lee. Studies in ancient Jewish magic.
Taheri, Zahra Haghighi. The depiction of women in Persian ethical texts.
Taniguchi, Shoyo. A systematic structure of ethics founded on causal conditionality (paticcasamuppada): Ethics from the pali nikaya textual point of view.
1995
Barbanes, Eleanor Rose. Neo-Assyrian town planning.
Ghanimati, Soroor. Kuh-E Khwaja: A building complex in Sistan.
Noelle-Karimi, Christine. The interaction between state and tribe in nineteenth-century Afghanistan: The reign of Amir Dost Muhammad Khan (1826-1863).
1994
Bonogofsky, Michelle A. Gifts for the Netherworld: Objects excavated from the royal cemetery at Ur.
Codella, Kim Christopher. Distribution of chlorite carved vessels in the third millennium B.C.: Evidence for trade and exchange between Mesopotamia and its eastern neighbors.
Friedman, Renee Frances. Predynastic settlement ceramics of Upper Egypt: A comparative study of the ceramics of Hemamieh, Nagada, and Hierakonpolis.
Moore, Teresa Robin. The Good God Amenhotep: The deified king as a focus of popular religion during the Egyptian New Kingdom
Podzorski, Patricia Victoria. The Northern cemetery at Ballas Upper Egypt: A study of the Middle and Late Predynastic remains.
1993
Astren, Fred David. History, historicization, and historical claims in Karaite Jewish literature.
Fakour, Mehrdad. An Islamic canon of proportion: A study on the depiction of the human form in early Islamic art.
Hayes, Christine Elizabeth. Between the Babylonian and Palestinian Talmuds: Accounting for Halakhic difference in selected Sugyot from Tractate Avodah Zarah.
Stahl, Nanette, The flawed liminal moment: Between law and narrative in the Bible
Advisor: Robert Alter
Tsoffar, Ruth. Koshering the body: Female ritual discourse among the San Francisco Bay Area Karaites.
Zorn, Jeffrey Ralph, Tell en-Nasbeh: A re-evaluation of the architecture and stratigraphy of the early Bronze Age, Iron Age and later periods, 4 vols.
Advisor: David Stronach
1992
Atai, Mohammad Farhad. The Sending of Iranian students to Europe 1811-1906.
Bedal, Leigh-Ann. The Neo-Assyrian bracelet: A study of its evolution, function and symbolism.
Bernstein, Marc Steven. The Story of Our Master Joseph: Intertextuality in Judaism and Islam.
Burden, Jeffrey Christopher. The architecture of the White Chapel of Senuseret I: The making of a Middle Kingdom monument.
Edzard, Lutz. Polygenesis and entropy: An alternative model of linguistic evolution applied to Semitic linguistics.
Gane, Roy Edwin. Ritual dynamic structure: Systems theory and ritual syntax applied to selected ancient Israelite, Babylonian and Hittite festival days.
Harrington, Hannah Karajian. The biblical foundations of the impurity systems of the Qumran Sectaries and the Rabbis.
Harrington, Lori Dee. Naga-ed-Der Cemetry 100: A sample of cranial material and its context.
Rattray, Susan. The tense-mood-aspect system of biblical Hebrew, with special emphasis on 1 & 2 Samuel.
Shoemaker, Kenneth Wayne. Speaker and audience participants in Micah: Aspects of prophetic discourse.
Wong, Diana Pickworth. South Arabian bovine stelae: On the function and significance of theomorphic statues from Qataban.
1991
Bikai, Pierre Michel. The cedar of Lebanon: Archaeological and dendrochronological perspectives.
Bolt, Dianna Gail. Burial in an ancient northern Mesopotamian town: The evidence from Tell Mohammed 'Arab.
Chyet, Michael L. "And a thornbush sprang up between them": Studies on Mem u Zin, a Kurdish romance.
Godlas, Alan Arthur. The Ara’is al-bayan: The mystical Qur'anic exegesis of Ruzbihan al-Baqli.
Jamzadeh, Parivash. The Achaemenid throne: Its significance and its legacy.
Knudsen, Joan Ann. A corpus of amulets from Cemetery 500 at El Ahaiwah.
Kuwabara, Toshikazu. The Netherworld in Sumero-Akkadian literature.
Ross, Jennifer Carol. A Late Bronze Age pottery workshop at Hazor.
Snyder, Barbara Wootten. Combat myth in the apocalypse: The liturgy of the Day of the Lord and the dedication of the Heavenly Temple.
Zournatzi, Antigoni. Evagoras I, Athens and Persia: ca. 412 to 387/6 B.C.
1990
Adler, Elaine June. The background for the metaphor of covenant as marriage in the Hebrew Bible.
Gane, Constance Ellen. The worshipper before symbols on selected Neo-Babylonian stamp seals.
Lumsden, Stephen Paul. Symbols of power: Hittite royal iconography in seals.
Marchant, Anne Jones. Old Babylonian tablets from Larsa in the Lowie Museum of Anthropology.
Mosher, Malcolm. The ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead in the Late Period: A study of revisions evident in evolving vignettes, and the possible chronological or geographical implications for differing versions of vignettes.
Roehrig, Catharine Hershey. The Eighteenth Dynasty titles royal nurse (mn't nswt), royal tutor (mn't nswt), and foster brother/sister of the lord of the two lands (sn/sn't mn' n nb t3wy).
Samman, Antoine. The Kingdom of Iamhad: Epigraphic evidence for a major power in the Near East in the first half of the second millennium B.C.
1980s
1989
Brown, Cheryl Anne, Women in Rewritten Bible: Studies in "Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum" and Josephus' "Antiquities of the Jews" (GTU)
Davis-Kimball, Jeannine, Proportions in Achaemenid art
Advisor: Guitty Azarpay
Greene, Barbara Alice, Ancient Egyptian Stone Vessels: Materials and Forms
Advisor: Cathleen Keller
Haji-Ahmad, Haji-Mohamad Bohari, The ideas of Wahdat al-Wujud in the poetry of ‘Abd al-Qadir Bidil (Persian), Ibrahim Hakki Erzurumlu (Ottoman Turkish), and Hamzah Fansuri (Malay)
Advisor: Hamid Algar
1988
DeYoung, Terri Lynn, And thereby hangs a tale: A study of myth in modern Arabic poetry
Advisor: Mounah Khouri
Kirschner, Robert Steven, Baraita d-melekhet ha-mishkan: Critical edition with introduction
Advisor: Jacob Milgrom
Movassat, Johanna Domela, The large vault at Taq-i Bustan: A study in Late Sassanian royal art
1987
Hary, Benyamin, Judeo-Arabic, written and spoken in Egypt in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
Advisor: Ariel Bloch
Leibowitz, Joseph H., The image of Job as reflected in rabbinic writings
Advisor: Jacob Milgrom
1986
Hartwig, Melinda Kay. Proportional grids as geometrical reflections of style: An analysis of the first intermediate period stelae of Naga ed-Deir
LaBarbera, Robert Dennis, Social and religious satire in the Elisha cycle (GTU)
Advisor: Robert Alter
Sabbahy, Fattah Mohammed, Prelude to empire: Ancient Egyptian military policy and activity in the early New Kingdom
Advisor: Cathleen Keller
1985
Rispler, Vardit, Insurance in the world of Islam: Origins, problems and current practice
Advisor: William Brinner
Slyomovics, Susan Eve. The merchant of art: An Egyptian Hilali oral epic in performance.
1984
Ben-Dov, Nitza, The dream as a junction of theme and characterization in the psychological fiction of S.Y. Agnon
Advisor: Robert Alter
Green, Heidi Anne, Artistic expressions of charismatic, traditional and rational political authority in Mesopotamian Imperial art: The Old Akkadian Empire, the Second Dynasty of Lagash, the Ur III Period
Omidsalar, Mahmoud, Oedipus complex in the Shahnameh: Textual, folkloristic, and psychoanalytical studies on the national Persian epic
Advisor: Martin Schwartz
Weinberger, James William, The Rise of Muslim cities in Sogdia, 700-1220
Advisor: Hamid Algar
Wright, David Pearson, The disposal of impurity in the priestly writings of the Bible with reference to similar phenomena in Hittite and Mesopotamian cultures
Advisor: Jacob Milgrom
1983
Unterman, Jeremiah, The relationship of repentance to redemption in Jeremiah
Gordon, Andrew Hunt, The context and meaning of the ancient Egyptian word "inw" from the Proto-Dynastic Period to the end of the New Kingdom
Advisor: Kent Weeks
1982
Podzorski, Patricia Victoria, A descriptive summary of the human skeletal remains from the early predynastic cemetery N7000, Naga-ed-Der, Egypt
Ricks, Stephen David, A lexicon of epigraphic Qatabanian
Simons, Sandra Kay, A structural study of expanded verbal bases in Egyptian
Sowayan, Saad Abdullah, Nabati Poetry: The Oral Poetry of Arabia
Advisor: Mounah Khouri & Alan Dundes
Zeidan, Joseph Tufeek, Women Novelists in Modern Arabic Literature
Advisor: Mounah Khouri
1981
Davis, Humphrey Taman, Seventeenth-century Egyptian Arabic: A profile of the colloquial material in Yusuf al-Sirbini's Hazz al-Quhuf fi Sarh Qasid Abi Saduf
Advisor: Ariel Bloch
1980
Green, Barbara, A study of field and seed symbolism in the biblical story of Ruth (GTU)
Nelson, Kristina, The Art of Reciting the Qur'an
Advisor: Mounah Khouri
Pirnazar, Jaleh. Political movements and organizations in Iran, 1890-1953
Advisor: Hamid Algar
1970s
1979
Kikawada, Isaac M., Literary conventions connected with antediluvian historiography in the ancient Near East
Lee, Thomas Robert, Studies in the form of Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) 44-50 (GTU)
Salib, Maurice Boulos, Spoken literary Arabic: Oral approximation of literary Arabic in Egyptian formal discourse
1978
Bowman, Charles H., The goddess ‘Anatu in the ancient Near East (GTU)
Dobel, Allan George, The location of Washshukanni: An analysis of archaeological and textual source materials
Flattery, David Stophlet, Haoma
Molan, Peter D. Medieval Western Arabic: Reconstructing elements of the dialects of Al-Andalus, Sicily and North Africa from the laḥn al-‘ammah literature
Advisor: Ariel Bloch
Perlman, Alice Lenore, Asherah and Astarte in the Old Testament and Ugaritic literatures (GTU)
Vittor, Charles Frank. The Herat School: Persian Poetry in the Timurid Period
Advisor: Hamid Algar
Wold, Donald John, The meaning of the biblical penalty kareth
1977
Halperin, David Joel, Merkabah and Ma'aesh Merkabah, According to Rabbinic Sources
Advisor: Baruch Bokser
Schub, Michael B, Linguistic topics in Al-Zamachshari's commentary on the Qur'an
Advisor: Ariel Bloch
1975
Hecker, Judith Katz, Reason and responsibility: An explanatory translation of Kitab al-tawlid from al-Mughni fi abwab al-tawhid wa-l-‘adi by Qadi ‘Abd al-Jabbar al-Hamadhani, with introduction and notes
Siddiqi, Mohammed Moazzam, An examination of the Indo-Persian mystical poet Mirza ‘Abdul Qadir Bedil with particular reference to his chief work ‘Irfan
Advisor: Hamid Algar
1974
Busul, As’ad Namir, Sheikh Muhammad Rashid Rida's political activities: A struggle for the revival of an Orthodox (Salafi) Islamic state
Foxvog Jr., Daniel Allan, The Sumerian ventive
Saliba, George Asad, The technical chronology of Bar Shinaya
Smith, Grace Martin, Varga ve Gülşāh: A Fourteenth Century Anatolian Turkish Mesnevi
1973
Caspi, Mishael, Oh my beloved, my wish and my desire: On redemption, messianism, and love in Yemenite poetry
Advisor: William Brinner
Cooper, Richard Stefan. Ibn Mammati's rules for the ministries: Translation with commentary of the Qawanin al-Dawawin.
Zevit, Ziony, Studies in biblical poetry and vocabulary in their northwestern Semitic setting
1972
Zwettler, Michael, The Oral Tradition of Classical Arabic Poetry: Its Character and Implications
Advisor: Mounah Khouri
1971
Meisami, Julie Scott, New Forms in Modern Arabic Poetry, 1900-1965
Advisor: Mounah Khouri
1960s
1969
Holland, Barron Gregory, The Satsaī of Bīhārī: Hindi Poetry of the Early Rītī Period; Introduction, Translation, and Notes
Advisor: Gordon Roadarmel
Roadarmel, Gordan C., The Theme of Alienation in the Modern Hindi Short Story
1967
Schwartz, Martin, Studies in the Texts of the Sogdian Christians
Advisor: Walter B. Henning
1966
Bland, Richard Murry, The Arabic Commentary Of Yephet Ben Ali On The Book Of Ecclesiastes, Chapters 1-6
Walker, Vivian Marguerite, Sanskrit literary elements in modern Hindi literature
1950s
1956
Brinner, William, Damascus during the reign of Sultan Barqūq, according to Ibn Ṣaṣrā's Arabic manuscript
Advisor: William Popper
1900s
1905
Powell, Herbert Harry, The Supposed Hebraisms in the Grammar of the Biblical Aramaic
Advisor: Max L. Margolis
Appendix: Early dissertations in other departments on MELC-related areas
- Keddie, Nikki, The Impact of the West on Iranian Social History (History, 1955)
- Rentz Jr., George S., Muhammad ibn ʻAbd al-Wahhâb (1703/04-1792) and the Beginnings of Unitarian Empire in Arabia (History, 1948)
- Hazam, John George, Arab Nationalism and Anglo-French Imperialism on the Eve of the World War (History, 1932)