The Noah’s Ark mosaic from the site of Huqoq, discovered this past summer by Prof. Jodi Magness and her team, was just selected by Live Science as one of “The 9 Biggest Archaeology Findings of 2016!”

To view the list, click here.

For more on the Huqoq excavations, including how to participate in the 2017 season, click here.

Professor Carl Ernst recently conducted an interview with the Ultimate Concerns podcast on the topic of “American Islamophobia,” in which he addressed the many dimensions of this problem, from the possible causes of Islamophobia to the ways in which one might respond. The discussion relates to the topic of his edited book, Islamophobia in America: The Anatomy of Intolerance (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).

For the podcast interview, click here.

“Ultimate Concerns” is a podcast on religion and culture hosted by Ron Mourad, Professor of Religious Studies at Albion College and a graduate (B.A. 1994) of our department. For more information click here.

Since 2011, Prof. Jodi Magness has led archaeological excavations at the site of Huqoq in Israel’s Galilee, where she and her team have garnered international attention for their discovery of an ancient synagogue building with stunning mosaic floors. She is returning to Huqoq in summer 2017 and invites students to participate in the excavation through UNC’s Study Abroad program.

This coming season, the excavations will take place May 29-June 30, 2017. The deadline to apply for the program is February 9, 2017 (the online application system opens on December 1, 2016). The field school program offers students 6 hours of academic credit.

For more information, see the flyer for the field school program, the description on the UNC Study Abroad website, or the Huqoq Excavation Project website. You might also be interested in the previous coverage of her work on our website here (9/14/2016), here (7/6/2016), and here (7/15/2014).

In addition, Prof. Magness recently did an interview with UNC’s podcast series, “Well Said,” in which she described the goals and methods of archaeology as well as the specific implications of her work at Huqoq:

Todd Ochoa, Associate Professor in Religious Studies, was recently featured in an episode of the Institute for the Arts and Humanities podcast. In this 11-minute interview, Prof. Ochoa discusses his course on “Introduction to Religion and Culture,” his ongoing research in Cuba, and his love of the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien. Listen to the podcast below:

In a recent article in National Geographic titled “Explore This Mysterious Mosaic – It May Portray Alexander the Great,” Professor Jodi Magness is interviewed regarding one of the most fascinating synagogue mosaics to have come to light from her archaeological excavations at Huqoq in Israel’s Galilee. The mosaic in question, discovered in 2014, is interpreted by Professor Magness as a portrayal of the legendary meeting between Alexander the Great and the Jerusalem high priest.

The article not only explores the different interpretations that have been offered to explain this enigmatic scene, but it also contains an interactive visual tool that leads the reader through each part of the mosaic close-up. To read the NatGeo article, click here.

For a video clip (4:38) of Professor Magness discussing this mosaic and the NatGeo article on Fox News, click here.

Royal figure in Huqoq mosaic (Photo by Jim Haberman)

Posted in Faculty News on September 14, 2016. Bookmark the permalink.

As the semester begins, we would like to extend a warm welcome to two new members of our faculty:

Harshita Kamath joins us as Assistant Professor in Hinduism and South Asian Religions. Dr. Kamath holds a Ph.D. in West and South Asian Religions from Emory University, and her research focuses on the textual and performance traditions of Telugu-speaking South India. Her forthcoming book, Constructing Artifice: An Ethnography of Impersonation in South India, analyzes gender impersonation in the Telugu dance style of Kuchipudi. She has co-translated the sixteenth-century classical Telugu text Parijatapaharanamu (Theft of a Tree) with Velcheru Narayana Rao, which will be published as part of the Murty Classical Library of India by Harvard University Press.
 
 
Hugo Mendez joins us as a Postdoctoral Fellow. Dr. Mendez received his Ph.D. in 2013 from the Interdisciplinary Linguistics Program at the University of Georgia, and he comes to us from Yale University, where he served as Lecturer and Postdoctoral Fellow at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music for the past two years. He specializes in the reception of the Bible within Christian communities in late antiquity.
 
 
Welcome, Harshita and Hugo!