Dr. John Hayes received his Ph.D. from the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at UCLA in 1984. Since then he has taught at Cal, with occasional visiting stints elsewhere. His principal interests are Semitic linguistics; the history of Arabic and the grammatical study of Arabic; Sumerian; the contemporary Middle East. Dr. Hayes is a recepient of an Honorary Membership in the Golden Key International Honour Society; Honorary Members are professors, campus advisors, and community service leaders who have proven themselves exceptional in their careers in education and helping...
Bernie Williams Professor Emerita of Modern Hebrew and Comparative Literature
Professor Kronfeld taught Hebrew, Yiddish, and Comparative Literature in MELC from the mid-1980s until her retirement in 2022.
Professor Kronfeld is the author of On the Margins of Modernism: Decentering Literary Dynamics which won the MLA Scaglione Prize in 1996 for Best Book in Comparative Literary Studies. Her co-translation (with Chana Bloch) of Yehuda Amichai’s Open Closed Open won the PEN Translation Prize. She is the recipient (with Chana Bloch) of the top 2005-6 National Endowment for the Arts award for the translation and annotated edition of Hovering...
Professor Emerita of Assyriology, Catherine and William L. Magistretti Distinguished Professor Emerita of Near Eastern Studies
Francesca Rochberg is Catherine and William L. Magistretti Distinguished Professor of Near Eastern Studies Emerita. From 1982–1987 she held the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellowship and was awarded the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in 1993. In 2008 she was elected to the American Philosophical Society.
Rochberg was a member of the Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures (formerly Near Eastern Studies) Department and a member of the Graduate Group in Ancient History and Mediterranean Archaeology from 2007–2022, and served as Chair of MELC from 2018–2021....