Hebrew Bible/Ancient Near East at the University of Texas at Austin

Digital Scholarship Roundtable this Friday (10/22)! Join on Zoom! https://bit.ly/3AySQbh

Spring and summer kudos for the affiliates of the HBANE program at UT Austin!

In a digital defense due to the pandemic, Øyvind Bjøru successfully defended his dissertation "Studies in the Historical Syntax of Akkadian" yesterday. The committee (Drs. Epps, Wells, Pat-El, and Huehnergard) was delighted, and the newly minted doctor (and his wife) is ecstatic!

The audience tuned in from around the world to hear vivid grammatical arguments and birds chirping away in the background.

Our department has a tenure-track position in Modern Arabic Literature open. If you know someone who can come work on North African literature, spread the word!

Apply - Interfolio

We are very excited for Aaron Koller's (Yeshiva University) talk next week: "The Invention and Early History of the Alphabet: New Data and New Perspectives"

The Invention and Early History of the Alphabet: New Data and New Perspectives The alphabet is one of the most formative inventions in the history of Western civilization. While writing was invented at least a few times, the alphabet was invented only once, in the vicinity of Sinai or Egypt, approximately 4000 years ago. From there, it spread, at first slowly throughout the Ne...

Yesterday we celebrated Paul Edgar who successfully defended his dissertation “Clever Among the Strong: Small Powers in War and Peace, 1595-1340 BCE”. The happy committee consisted of Drs. Wells, Huehnergard, and Suri of UT as well as Drs. Halpern (UGA) and Beckman (UMich) digitally present. We congratulate Dr. Edgar and look forward to the promised bumper stickers: What would Šuppiluliuma do?

Dr. Jack Weinbender successfully defended his dissertation "Remembering and Rewriting – Reframing Rewritten Bible through Memory Studies" today. His advisor, Dr. Kaplan, and enthusiastic committee members Drs. Huehnergard, Hackett, and Fraade (Yale) gladly inducted the novice into their guild.

On this thunderous day in Austin, Sigrid K. Kjær successfully defended her dissertation “Monotheism, Kingship, and Religious Transformation in Late Antique Yemen: The Rise and Fall of Joseph Dhu Nuwas”. Congratulations, Dr. Kjær!

Committee: John Huehnergard (advisor), Azfar Moin (advisor), Jonathan Kaplan, Holger Zellentin (University of Cambridge)

Efforts are afoot to ameliorate the (dire) financial situation for graduate students at UT. One step is to have the Tuition Reduction Benefit *actually* cover tuition.
This petition can be signed by current students, faculty, staff, alumni, and "Other."

Please sign and share the petition! Our goal is a living wage and lower fees for grad workers. Petition link here: https://tinyurl.com/UTGradLabor

Earlier this month Dr. Bruce Wells had a piece feature in the Dallas Morning News, the Waco Tribune Herald, and the San Antonio Express. The piece was the suggestion to feature the ten commandments in Texas classrooms and was entitled "So you want to display the Ten Commandments in Texas classrooms, but what version?"

UT College of Liberal Arts: Bruce Wells is Associate Professor of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Texas where he specializes in the study of the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East. His article, So you want to display the Ten Commandments in Texas classrooms, but what version? has been featured in the Dallas M...