Research Projects in HJS

Language

• Contemporary Hasidic Yiddish (2019-2022) An AHRC funded project describing and analysing the grammatical and sociolinguistic features characteristic of the Yiddish used by Hasidic communities worldwide
• The grammar of Maskilic (Jewish Enlightenment) Hebrew  (2017-19) This Philip Leverhulme Prize funded project focuses on producing a detailed linguistic profile of Maskilic Hebrew in its full chronological, geographic, and genre range.
• The First Hebrew Shakespeare Translations (2015-2017) Arts and Humanities Research Council project on the earliest translation of Shakespeare’s plays into Hebrew

Politics

• Jewish Self-Government in Poland from its inception to the present — a critical and annotated source reader (2009–2022) A project to identify, translate and comment on the most relevant and most significant sources pertaining to the history of Jewish self-government in Poland from its beginnings in the Middle Ages to the contemporary world
• Transformation of Jewish political culture: Intercession from the early modern period to the 19th century (2002-2022) Ongoing work by François Guesnet looking at the history of intercession in the history of the European Jewish diaspora

Culture

• The whole world shall be our fatherland: Diasporas of the music industry and their Finnish connections (2019–2022) is funded by the Kone Foundation.
• Discourses on Body and Sexuality in Polish-Jewish Female Writing between 1890 and 1918 (2019-2021) A project to reflect on the broader cultural context in which Jewish women lived in the Polish lands and how it impacted on perceptions of sexuality and the body. Funded by the National Science Centre of Poland.
• Anti-Semitism in an Era of Transition. The case of Post-Communist Eastern Central Europe In cooperation with the School of Slavonic and East European Studies at UCL (funded by the Rothschild Foundation, Europe).
• Introductory Poems to the Babylonian Targums A grant from the Rothschild Foundation Europe in the Post-doctoral Research Fellowships Programme.
• Towards a New Cultural History of Czernovitz: The Jewish Press, 1918-1940 

Calendars and ancient science

• Introducing Assyrian Medicine: Healthcare Fit for a King (2020-2023) This is a Wellcome Funded Research Resources Award at the British Museum and UCL to publish online the cuneiform Nineveh Medical Encyclopaedia from the 7th century BCE Royal Library of Ashurbanipal of Assyria.   
• Saadya Gaon’s Works on the Jewish Calendar: Near Eastern Sources and Transmission to the West (2021-2023) This Fritz Thyssen Foundation funded project investigates Saadya Gaon’s literary production on the calendar
• Qaraite and Rabbanite calendars: origins, interaction, and polemic (2018–2021) This Fritz Thyssen Foundation funded project investigates the origins of the Qaraite and fixed Rabbanite calendars and studies the calendar disagreement between Qaraites and Rabbanites
• Calendars in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages: Standardization and Fixation (2013-2018) This ERC funded research project studied the evolution of calendars in late antique and medieval societies, with a special focus on Roman, Christian, Jewish, and Islamic calendars.
• Medieval Christian and Jewish Calendar Texts from England and Franco-Germany (2011-2013) This Leverhulme-funded research project survived a large number of Hebrew and Latin calendar manuscripts that have been largely neglected until now in modern scholarship, and prepared critical editions and translations of the texts.
• The Jewish Calendar in Early Islamic Sources (2010–2012) A Leverhulme-Funded research project focused on Abu Rayhan al-Biruni’s Chronology of the Ancient Nations, which contains substantial sections on the Jewish calendar and its historical origins.
• Medieval Monographs on the Jewish Calendar (2008–2013) A major Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funded research project to increase understanding and promote the study of medieval writings on the Jewish calendar, by providing access to neglected and largely unpublished works.