Michael Satlow
Professor of Religious Studies and Judaic Studies:
Program in Judaic Studies and Department of Religious Studies
Phone: +1 401 863 3911
Michael_Satlow@Brown.EDU
Professor Michael L. Satlow specializes in Early Judaism and has written extensively on issues of gender, sexuality, and marriage among Jews in antiquity, as well as on the Dead Sea scrolls, Jewish theology, methodology in Religious Studies, and the social history of Jews during the rabbinic period. He recently finished a book entitled "Creating Judaism" and is now examining Jewish piety in antiquity and developing an internet accessible database of inscriptions from Israel/Palestine.
Biography
Professor Michael L. Satlow received his Ph.D. in "Ancient Judaism" from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in 1993. His most recent book is Creating Judaism: History, Tradition, Practice. He is on the boards of the Journal of the American Academy of Religion and Henoch and is a co-editor of the Brown Judaic studies series. He has held an ACLS and Guggenheim Fellowships.
Interests
My primary research interest now is in Jewish piety in antiquity. I am particularly interested in the ways in which Jews in antiquity, both rabbinic and non-rabbinic, understood their relationship with the divine. My early work suggests that Jews shared the basic understandings of piety of their non-Jewish neighbors (whether Palestinian or Babylonian), but expressed these understandings through the idiom of their own traditions. This project has started as a series of essays that will ultimately cohere as a book.
I am also continuing work on an internet accessible database of inscriptions from Israel/Palestine(http://www.stg.brown.edu/projects/Inscriptions). This project brings together the previously published inscriptions from Israel/Palestine from approximately 500 B.C.E. to 640 C.E. in both their original languages and English translation into a searchable database.
Degrees
Ph.D Jewish Theological Seminary, 1993
Awards
1997-98 American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship
2007 John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship
2007 Cogut Faculty Fellowship
Affiliations
Society of Biblical Literature; American Academy of Religion; World Union of Jewish Studies; Association for Jewish Studies
Teaching
I teach both graduate and undergraduate students in a wide range of topics in early Judaism, Judaism, and comparative religions. I am involved directly in graduate advising and training. I also regularly teach adult education classes.
Funded Research
2007-8 Co-recipient (with John Bodel) of Salomon Faculty Research Grant for development of a Center of Digital Epigraphy
2005-6 Recipient of Salomon Faculty Research Grant for work on "Inscriptions from the Land of Israel" : $15,000
2003-4 Recipient of a Scholarly Technology Group grant for work on "Inscriptions from the Land of Israel"
1998- Corresponding Fellow, Rennert Center for Jerusalem Studies, Bar-Ilan University, Israel: $2000
