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Research
Our research is wide-ranging and innovative, exploring areas of Jewish Studies that are multinational, interdisciplinary, and often neglected or unknown.
Our areas of research include, but are not limited to:
- Ancient Near East
- Early rabbinic literature
- Jewish time and calendars
- Code switching in the Talmud
- Ancient science & medicine
- Ancient Jewish magic
- Witchcraft in biblical & post-biblical times
- Body marking & tattoos
- Yiddish literature
- Hebrew & Yiddish theatre
- Jews and photography
- Jewish feminism
- Maskilic Hebrew
- Endangered languages
- Jewish mysticism
- Jewish food
- Jewish-Muslim relations
- The Arab-Israeli conflict
- Peace efforts in the Middle East
- Antisemitism
- Jewishness and gender
- The Holocaust/Shoah
- Eastern European Jewish history
Our contributions to understanding and knowledge are significant, pioneering, and world-leading.
We have run several international research collaborations with colleagues in Israel, Germany, Poland, and the USA. In the last ten years, the Department has won major research grants from the ERC (European Research Council), AHRC (Arts and Humanities Research Council), Leverhulme, and the British Academy, and has hosted a number of postdoctoral fellowships. Research students have undertaken doctorates in a very wide range of subjects.
Our location in the heart of Bloomsbury in Central London gives us close access to a wide range of libraries and unique research facilities, and to its vibrant, interdisciplinary research community.
Publications
Journals
Edited by a member of the Department
Jewish Historical Studies: A Journal of English-Speaking Jewry, UCL Press (Prof Shirli Gilbert, Editor-in-Chief)
Journal of Jewish Studies, Liverpool University Press. (Prof Sacha Stern, with Prof Alison Salvesen [Oxford], Editors; Dr Alinda Damsma, Assistant Editor)
Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry, Liverpool University Press. (Prof François Guesnet & Prof Antony Polonsky [Brandeis University], Editors)
Book Series
Edited by a member of the Department
Ancient Cultures of Sciences and Knowledge, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. (Prof Mark Geller, Co-Editor)
Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity, Leiden: Brill. (Prof Sacha Stern & Prof Cilliers Breytenbach [Berlin], Executive Editors)
Cuneiform Monographs, Leiden: Brill. (Prof Mark Geller, Co-Editor)
Grammars of World and Minority Languages, London: UCL Press. (Prof Lily Kahn & Dr Riitta-Liisa Valijärvi, [SSEES], Co-Editors)
IJS Studies in Judaica, Leiden: Brill. (Prof Mark Geller, Prof François Guesnet, Prof Lily Kahn, Prof Ada Rapoport-Albert z"l, Editors)
Routledge Studies in Jewish Languages, London: Routledge. (Prof Lily Kahn, Prof Aaron D. Rubin, Editors)
Science, Technology, Medicine in Ancient Cultures, Berlin: De Gruyter. (Prof Mark Geller, Co-Editor)
Textbooks of World and Minority Languages, London: UCL Press. (Prof Lily Kahn & Dr Riitta-Liisa Valijärvi, [SSEES], Co-Editors)
Time, Astronomy, and Calendars: Texts and Studies, Leiden: Brill. (Prof Sacha Stern & Prof Charles Burnett [Warburg Institute], Editors)