I study the Hebrew Bible, its poetics and its history, being particularly interested in narrative. I disentangle texts, techniques, and genres as a material philologist, historian, and literary critic, working with traditional biblical criticism alongside narratology and critical theory. Currently, I am digging inwards into biblical and ancient Jewish scriptures and literatures to shed light on the genesis of the novel, circling at the moment around the book ofEsther.
In another direction, I am a comparatist looking outwards, studying literary culture on the margins of the cosmopolitan world of the Persian and Hellenistic Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean, when the Hebrew Bible took a shape we are familiar with. In this way, I explore how Jews brought biblical texts into a flourishing node of world literature. Beyond the Hebrew Bible, I am also a specialist in Demotic and in Late and Graceo-Roman period Egypt, and, more generally, on cultural connections and interactions between Egypt and the Levant.
Inwards and outwards, seeking a center and also moving away from it, at Berkeley you will find me following the eddies in the stream (W. Benjamin) of ancient Middle Eastern literature.
Before coming to Cal in July 2026, I was a researcher on the ERC Advanced Grant project "Demotic Egyptian Papyri and the Formation of the Hebrew Bible" (DEMBIB) at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. I received my PhD in 2022 from the University of Chicago.
My teaching interests include surveys and literary approaches to the Hebrew Bible, and Ancient Israel/Judea in its Middle Eastern context. Particular topics include ancient Middle Eastern and Eastern Mediterranean literature, culture, religion, and magic, and Ancient Egypt. At Berkeley, I am interested in training graduate students in advanced Biblical Hebrew, Northwest Semitics, and the philology and history of the Hebrew Bible and ancient Jewish literature. I am also seeking students who are interested in breaking new ground in the comparative study of Egypt and the Hebrew Bible/Ancient Israel/Judea. More generally, I am looking forward to working at Berkeley with anyone who seeks a strong linguistic, paleographic, philological, and literary grounding in the study of Levantine and Eastern Mediterranean cultures from the Bronze Age to the age of Rome. If any this is of interest to you, please be in touch!
Fall 2026 Office Hours
Tuesdays 9-10 am, Wednesdays 3-4 pm, and by appointment
Recent Courses
MELC 34 - Hebrew Bible in Translation: Disentangling Scripture, Discovering Literature (Fall 2026)
Select Publications
Ruly Stories, Unruly Plots: A Poetics of Storytelling of the Judean and Demotic Novella(forthcoming with Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis)
The Routledge Handbook of Ancient Egypt and the Hebrew Bible, co-edited with Bernd Schipper and Robert Kade (expected 2027)
"The Style of the Opening of the Judean Novella,"Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel15:3, pp. 315-49, 2026
"Appearance and Reality in Setne’s Dialogue with 'Pharaoh' in First Setne 5.31–35," in Aurore Motte and Victoria Victoria Almansa-Villatoro, eds., (Im)politeness in Ancient Egypt: Norms, Wit, and Rudeness in Texts from Pharaonic Times through Late Antiquity (Brill, Studies in Pragmatics), pp. 265–292, 2026
"Esther as Novella," in Helge Bezold and Kristin Joachimsen, eds.,Esther: Themes and Issues(Equinox Themes and Issues in Biblical Studies), 2025
"Mouvance and the Art of Fiction in Performance in Manuscripts of a Demotic Novella,"Manuscripts and Text Cultures2:2, pp. 168-200, 2023
Hebrew Bible, ancient Jewish literature, literary approaches to the Hebrew Bible, Demotic, Ancient Egypt and the Hebrew Bible, history of the novel, material philology, literary theory, narratology, poetics, world literature
