Fall 2024 Semester in Review

Introduction

I’ve made it a habit on this blogsite to review my previous semesters of coursework and extracurricular activities at Johns Hopkins. For the Fall 2023 semester, see here. For the Spring and Summer 2024 semesters, see here. For a recent post on DSOL’s one year anniversary, see here. In this post, I review my Fall 2024 semester at JHU’s PhD program in Near Eastern Studies.

Fall 2024 Class Schedule

Generally, the maximum number of classes advisable for a PhD student in our department is five due to the requirements of each course. In the past semesters, I’ve exceeded this with an average of seven or eight courses (although I usually audit anything past my sixth class). This semester, I participated in about nine classes, five for credit and four auditing. Given that my advisor was on academic sabbatical in the fall, I used this time to audit some classes in the Department of Semitics at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. (four of the five audited classes). At Johns Hopkins (professors in parentheses), these included The Evolution of Hebrew Linguistic Thought (Elnatan Chen); Kings, Prophets, and Scribes: The Creation of “Israel” in the Deuteronomistic History (Alice Mandell); History of Ancient Syria/Palestine (Alice Mandell); Advanced Akkadian (Jacob Lauinger); and a guided study listed as “Readings & Research” dedicated to reading more Hebrew (Mandell; all HB/NWS students take this). I also occasionally sat in on Prof. Richard Jasnow’s reading course in Middle Egyptian. At CUA (again, professors in parentheses), I audited Introduction to Arabic (Shawqi Talia; focus on the grammar of the Quran and Classical literature); Biblical Hebrew Prose I (Andrew Gross); Akkadian (Gross); and Introduction to Targumic Aramaic (Edward Cook). I was able to take this courseload because, conveniently, the CUA classes were stacked on Mondays and Wednesdays, while the JHU classes were stacked on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday; and most importantly, all my professors graciously accommodated occasional scheduling conflicts.

Favorite Classes

Although all the classes were good, my favorite at JHU was Dr. Chen’s seminar on the evolution of Hebrew linguistic thought. Here’s the course description: “This course will explore the evolution of Hebrew linguistic thought, focusing on the seminal works of early Hebrew grammarians in Muslim Spain during the 10th–11th centuries, including Judah Hayyuj and Jonah Ibn Janah. It will then trace the intellectual journey across Christian Central Europe up to the late modern era, highlighting contributions from both Jewish and non-Jewish grammarians. Notably, it will feature figures such as David Kimhi at the beginning of this period and Wilhelm Gesenius at its conclusion. The exploration will conclude with an overview of modern contributions, from within Israel and abroad, to Hebrew linguistic thought, showcasing linguists like Naphtali Tur-Sinai and Geoffrey Khan. The course will primarily involve reading texts written by leading grammarians and biblical commentators, examining fundamental issues in Hebrew language, the various theories proposed, and the transformations that have taken place in Hebrew linguistic thought. The texts will be read in English, with reference to the original languages (if other than English), Hebrew or Arabic.” The majority of the class focused on the early Hebrew grammarians with cursory overview past the 13th century, except two weeks dedicated to Naphtali Tur-Sinai’s commentary on Job and the final week on current research in Hebrew linguistics (e.g. Noonan’s work on non-Semitic loanwords and Rendsburg on code-alternation in the HB). My paper (currently in progress) is a 20-page overview tentatively titled “A History of Aramaic Studies.”

My favorite class at CUA was Dr. Cook’s course on Targumic Aramaic (although again all four classes were excellent, including the instructors). For context, I studied at CUA before commencing at JHU, including several classes with Dr. Cook (e.g. Aramaic Dialects; Northwest Semitic Inscriptions; Historical Hebrew Grammar), so I was already well acquainted with the top-quality scholarship and instruction; my coursework and transcripts from CUA played no small part in my acceptance in JHU’s PhD program. Dr. Cook used Lambdin and Huehnergard’s grammar of Targum Onqelos, supplemented with his own materials. Dr. Cook, a world-class Aramaicist, recently published his own Aramaic grammar called Biblical Aramaic and Related Dialects: An Introduction (Cambridge University Press, 2022).

Extracurricular Activities

This semester was also filled with other academic and non-academic extracurricular activities. On Labor Day weekend, I visited Gettysburg National Military Park in Pennsylvania (Gettysburg was the U.S. Civil War’s bloodiest battle and the site of Abraham Lincoln’s famous Gettysburg Address). On September 15, I completed my first half marathon—the DC half in our nation’s capital. On October 28, Sara Milstein of UBC gave the 2024 Samuel Iwry lecture, and I was this year’s Iwry Fellow for our department. One of my more fun “non-academic” adventures included a weekend getaway learning about Thomas Jefferson in Charlottesville, VA where I visited Monticello, the University of Virginia, and Jefferson Vineyards. Most importantly, I attended the national meetings of the American School of Overseas Research (ASOR) and Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) for the first time; I presented my research on the sociolinguistics of the Canaanite Shift in Late Bronze Canaano-Akkadian at SBL on Nov. 23, 2024. And for a respite during the holidays, my two-week road trip consisted of these stops: Gatlinburg, TN (including Dollywood); touring the Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum as well as Lincoln’s burial site in Springfield, IL; a wedding in Peoria/Eureka, IL; touring the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures (ISAC, formerly OI) museum in Chicago, IL; visiting friends in Detroit, MI for a New Year’s Eve party; and visiting family friends in Columbus, OH on the way back to the DC/Baltimore area.

Year in Review Summary: 2024

To summarize my year (2024) in review, I started the year by climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania (the tallest mountain in Africa) with my uncle. I took five classes and audited a sixth at JHU in the spring. During the spring semester, I published four encyclopedia entries in the online Database of Religious History (see here and here). In the summer, I traveled to Portugal (twice: Porto and Lisbon), Spain (Salamanca and Madrid), England (Oxford), Germany (Leipzig), Belgium (Antwerp), Italy (Venice), the Netherlands (Leiden and Amsterdam), and Denmark (Copenhagen), mostly attending summer schools and conferences. Upon return from Europe, I traveled to Philadelphia (including the Penn Museum and sites related to Benjamin Franklin) and New York (including seeing Hamilton on Broadway). And to top it all off, I wrote 41 blog posts cataloging the journey:

1. Jan. 2, 2024: Semester in Review: Fall 2023 at JHU
2. Feb. 29, 2024: Two New (Online) Publications
3. Mar. 19, 2024: Climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro, Tanzania
4. Mar. 31, 2024: Learn to Read Ancient Aramaic: E. Cook (2022), Chapter Two, “Orthography”
5. Apr. 10, 2024: M. Richey: A (Brief) Literature Review
6. Apr. 12, 2024: Semitic Consonant Correspondences
7. Apr. 18, 2024: A Ugaritic Incantation against Snakebite (KTU 1.178 / RS 92.2014)
8. Apr. 24, 2024: Two More (Online) Publications
9. Apr. 27, 2024: Rare Semitic Languages
10. Apr. 28, 2024: A Sumerian Legal Case (ditila): Claim of Property and a Slave (ITT 3/2, pl. 21, 5279; Volk #38)
11. Apr. 29, 2024: Hammurabi Cylinder (Sumerian Translation from Old Babylonian Original)
12. Apr. 30, 2024: Šu-Suen Door Socket from Umma (RIME 3/2.1.4.17)
13. May 1, 2024: Sumerian Legal Case (ditila): A Lawsuit for Breach of Betrothal Promise (Volk #37)
14. May 3, 2024: A (Humorous) Model Court Case about Adultery (IM 28051; Volk #39)
15. May 5, 2024: Gudea Cylinder A i 1-29 (RIME E3/1.1.7.CylA)
16. May 6, 2024: Gudea Cylinder A ii 1-29 (E3/1.1.7.CylA)
17. May 7, 2024: Gudea Cylinder A iii 1-29 (E3/1.1.7.CylA)
18. May 8, 2024: Gudea Cylinder A xviii 1-28 (E3/1.1.7.CylA)
19. May 8, 2024: Law Code of Lipit-Ištar (Laws 8-18; CBS8284)
20. May 8, 2024: Gilgameš and Agga (Lines 1-17)
21. June 11, 2024: Travelogue: Iberian Peninsula (May 24-June 1, 2024)
22. June 23, 2024: Oxford University’s Anatolian Languages and Linguistics Summer School (June 17-22)
23. June 28, 2024: LTR Ancient Akkadian: Caplice, Lesson One
24. June 30, 2024: Leipzig AI and Harvard DH
25. July 6, 2024: Antwerp Digital Humanities Summer School
26. July 14, 2024: Venice Digital and Public Humanities Summer School
27. July 25, 2024: Two Cases of a Pseudo-Dual in Biblical Hebrew
28. Aug. 7, 2024: Leiden SSLL and Amsterdam ISBL
29. Aug. 30, 2024: Copenhagen: Digital Applications in Assyriology
30. Sep. 1, 2024: Spring and Summer 2024 Semesters in Review at JHU
31. Sep. 4, 2024: The Deuteronomistic History: Two Milestones in the History of Scholarship
32. Sep. 15, 2024: My First Half Marathon
33. Oct. 10, 2024: DtrH: The Göttingen School and Neo-Nothians
34. Oct. 26, 2024: Sara Milstein: A (Brief) Literature Review
35. Nov. 03, 2024: Thomas Jefferson: Monticello, UVA, and Hebrew/ANE Studies
36. Nov. 16, 2024: DSOL’s One Year Anniversary
37. Nov. 27, 2024: ASOR and SBL 2024
38. Nov. 29, 2024: DtrH: Five Further Developments
39. Dec. 18, 2024: The Doyen of DtrH: Thomas Römer
40. Dec. 18, 2024: Does DtrH even exist?
41. Dec. 19, 2024: DtrH: Books and Key Texts

Conclusion: A Look Ahead at Spring 2025

While 2024 has certainly been a busy and rewarding year, I expect (and hope) 2025 to be just as exciting and fulfilling. So far in the first week of the new year, I’ve completed three professional certificates about WordPress with an aim to make this website faster (I’ve already experienced success by migrating servers which upgraded the MySQL version from 5.7 to 8.0, resulting in better performance overall). I’m currently taking two online classes: Modern Hebrew Ulpan 2 through Rosen School of Hebrew and an introduction to Meroitic and Old Nubian through Macquarie Ancient Languages School. While I’m still in the course of ironing out my spring schedule at JHU and CUA, there’s no signs of slowing down the workload in my final semester of classes. These include (with professors in parentheses) The Book of Job (Hebrew seminar with Lewis), History: Ancient Syria-Palestine II (history seminar with Lewis), Advanced Akkadian (Lauinger), possibly The Talmud as Read in the Middle Ages (Katz), and at CUA, possibly auditing classes on Quranic and Classical Arabic (Talia), Targumic Aramaic II (Cook), and a seminar in Syriac patristics (Tilley). Most excitingly, however, I’ll be working on my dissertation prospectus; my topic deals with the sociolinguistics of Aramaic in history.

Postscript

As customary for me to acknowledge, I couldn’t have achieved all of this without the support of many people in my life. While I’m beyond grateful to my family, friends, and JHU professors, I especially want to thank three individuals who have been beyond gracious with their time in my scholarly formation: Andrew Gross, Shawqi Talia, and Edward Cook. These three professors at CUA allowed me to join their Arabic, Hebrew, Akkadian, and Aramaic classes during the fall and have generously given their time to write letters of recommendation on my behalf.

About The Author

Matthew Saunders

Matthew Saunders is a PhD student in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Johns Hopkins University. He researches the languages and literatures of the ancient Near East, especially Aramaic Studies, Ugaritic Studies, and Comparative Semitics.

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