Developing a new generation of conscientious, critical thinkers is an educational responsibility of the humanities. By framing the ancient world in socially relevant ways, I work to promote reflective engagement with course content through an emphasis on the shared humanity of the past and present. In my classroom I work to create a dynamic and inclusive learning community where, through active and collaborative student-instructor learning, students are motivated to take ownership of their education and become lifelong learners. Further, a necessity of classroom instruction is the development of practical, transferable skills such as presentation, writing, and collaborative structured discussion. To create and maintain an inclusive classroom environment, I employ the tenets of Universal Design for Learning in my lesson plans, emphasizing my own commitment to students, and the strengths and benefits that diverse perspectives offer.

Selected Courses

Age of Empires: Warfare, Power and Society in the Ancient Near East

Course Description:
The Bronze and Iron Age in the ancient Near East was a period marked by the rise and fall of major imperial powers whose conquest and expansion shaped the political, economic, and social fortunes of the region. This course examines such empires including those of Akkad, Egypt, Hatti, Assyria, Babylon, and Persia, ultimately culminating in Alexander the Great’s conquest of the ancient Near East. Using archaeological and historical data, this course explores the ways that power was consolidated and how it extended across the vast regions these empires came to control. Of equal focus are the experiences of subject peoples and the ways they resisted and/or adapted to foreign powers and the role that identity played in creating both a basis for power, but also in resisting power. This course asks questions such as: What constitutes Empire? What were effective means of expressing power? What was the role of ideology in relation to rulers and subjugated peoples? How did identities form in relation to, or in reaction to empire? How did different groups resist empire? What did life look like beneath different empires?

Archaeology, Identity and the Bible

Course Description:
The history of the archaeology of ancient Israel, traditionally referred to as “Biblical Archaeology,” has been principally concerned with illuminating the identity of ancient Israel through a combination of biblical and extra-biblical texts, and archaeological sources. After a century of rigorous investigation, it is clear, however, that the greatest success of archaeological study of ancient Israel and Canaan has not been the corroboration of the history of the biblical narratives, though their historical bases and cultural context are now far better understood. Instead, what comes to the fore are clear methods, theoretical approaches, and practices in the integration of text and archaeology for the exploration of ancient identities—social, economic, political, and religious, which reveal wider applications for understanding issues surrounding identity, group rivalries, conflict, and diversity among the populations of Iron Age Israel. This course introduces the archaeological record of ancient Israel from Israel’s origins at the end of the Bronze Age through the Achaemenid Period (ca. 1500–332 BC) together with current understandings of the genre, authorship, and historical value of different traditions preserved within the Hebrew Bible. Ancient Israelite identities are traced through a combination of archaeological and textual sources. The social, religious, and political traditions of ancient Israel and Judah are interpreted in the context of both earlier Bronze Age traditions and Israel’s Iron Age neighbors. Archaeological and textual data for identities such as the Amorites, Canaanites, Phoenicians, Egyptians, Assyrians, and Babylonians, among Israel’s many neighbors, form the basis for evaluating the construction and maintenance of biblical identities. Students are introduced to theoretical and methodological issues involving the historical archaeology of ancient Israel and the Levant, and the possibilities for investigating the negotiation of identity in the archaeological record.

First Civilizations

Course Description:
This course introduces the geographies, cultures, and histories of the ancient Near East through a survey of some of the world’s earliest civilizations, Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Levant, Anatolia, and Iran. As the course focuses on cultural developments rather than history, attention is paid to major themes arising from these cultures such as urbanism, conflict, migration, cultural exchange, the development of writing, early literary traditions, and the backgrounds of monotheism. The course draws analogies to modern events in order to emphasize the significance of early civilizations to our understandings of our own similar circumstances.

Jerusalem: The Holy City

Course Description:
This course will survey the cultural history of Jerusalem over three millennia, primarily as the symbolic focus of three faiths: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The course content will focus on the transformation of sacred space as reflected by literary and archaeological evidence by examining the artifacts, architectural monuments, and iconography in relation to written sources. The creation of mythic Jerusalem through event and experience will be examined. Course requirements will focus on the development of advanced writing skills and critical thinking.

Archaeology of Disasters

Course Description:
This course examines archaeological sites and landscapes that have been affected by natural and human-made disasters. Focus will be on assessing the types of evidence available from these unique locations and the short-term and long-term impacts of these events. The importance of understanding the implications of ancient disasters for considering human interaction with modern hazards will also be emphasized.

History of Ancient Egypt

Course Description:
This course is an introduction to the History of Egypt, from its prehistoric beginnings through the Pharaonic period until the arrival of Alexander the Great in 332 BCE. This course will use textual and archaeological data to examine developments in the political and cultural history of the region, using current approaches to understanding ancient history. Grounded in a robust understanding of the geography and topography of the region, Egypt will also be examined within its North African, Mediterranean, and Near Eastern context. Within the broader historical trajectory, specific themes that will be engaged include the development of the state, power and ideology, identity, collapse and resilience, social structures, funerary customs, architecture, agriculture, the invention of writing, and the complexities of cross-cultural interactions. Ultimately, this course seeks to situate the enduring fascination of ancient Egypt within a more nuanced understanding of our relation to our human past.