Who we are
The team consists of three academics involved in both research and teaching, and one post-doctoral full-time researcher:
- Philip Alexander FBA is Professor of Post-Biblical Jewish Studies at the University of Manchester. He began his academic career as a Classicist, then switched to the study of Hebrew and Semitic languages, but has retained a fundamental interest in the problem of how to contextualize Rabbinic Judaism in the Graeco-Roman world of late antiquity. From 1992-95 he was President of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies.
- Robert Hayward is Professor in the Department of Theology and Religion at Durham University. His main research interests lie in Aramaic Targums, Jews and Church Fathers, Post-Biblical Judaism, and Talmud and Midrash.
- Alex Samely is Professor of Jewish Thought at the University of Manchester. His research focuses on literary structures of Rabbinic literature, Rabbinic Exegesis, Spinoza and Hebrew Manuscripts. He recently published Forms of Rabbinic Literature and Thought: An Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).
- Rocco Bernasconi is an AHRC Research Associate to the Project. Having previously completed study in Bologna and Manchester, his PhD thesis in Bologna and the Paris École Pratique des Hautes Etudes (Sorbonne) was on Amei ha-aretz and Kutim in the Discourse of Mishnah and Tosefta.
(Left to right:) Alex Samely, Rocco Bernasconi, Robert Hayward, Philip Alexander.
(Click here for a larger version)
- There are also two PhD studentships attached to this project: Hedva Abel and Aron Sterk; and a number of other research students whose work is associated with the project methodologically. Click here for further information >
- The project was supported by a part-time administrative assistant.