Department of Religious Studies

Ellen Haskell, Assistant Professor

Ph.D. History of Judaism, University of Chicago Divinity School, 2005

edhaskel@uncg.edu

Office Hours: Mondays, 3:30-4:45 or by appointment

Areas of Academic Interest

• Jewish Thought and Jewish Literature
• Jewish Mysticism and Kabbalah
• Rabbinic Literature
• Theories of metaphor
• The role of imagery in religious thought
• Gender and Jewish religious imagery
• Jewish Mysticism in Contemporary Culture

 

Recent and Upcoming Courses

• REL 202: Hebrew Bible
• REL 215: Judaism
• REL 311: Topics in Biblical Studies
• REL 312: Judaism and the Construction of Gender: Female Images of God in Judaism
• REL 312: Judaism and the Construction of Gender: Gender, Sexuality and Holiness
• REL 341: Topics in Jewish Thought: Kabbalah
• REL 341: Topics in Jewish Thought: Kabbalah in Popular Culture

 

Personal Statement

As a scholar of Jewish mystical literature who is interested in history and culture, I seek connections between theological developments, religious imagery and socio-historical contexts. My current project focuses on an interpretation of Sefer ha-Zohar that demonstrates this classic text's responsive relationship to its cultural and historical environment.

Publications

"The Death of Rachel and the Kingdom of Heaven: Jewish Engagement with Christian Themes in Sefer ha-Zohar (forthcoming from the Journal of Medieval Religious Cultures).

Suckling from My Mother's Breasts: The Image of a Nursing God in Jewish Mysticism (book, forthcoming from SUNY Press).

“Metaphor, Transformation and Transcendence: Toward an Understanding of Kabbalistic Imagery in Sefer hazohar,” Prooftexts: A Journal of Jewish Literary History 28:3  (2008): 335-362.

“Divine Domesticity: Marriage, Gender, and the Household in Medieval Jewish Mysticism,” INTAMS Review: Journal for the Study of Marriage & Spirituality 16 (2010): 48-64.

Presentations and Speaking Engagements

• (March 2008), Divine Domesticity: Marriage, Gender and the Household in Jewish Mysticism, Franklin & Marshall College guest lecture series
• (December 2007, cancelled due to weather conditions) The House in the Center of All: Divinity as Dwelling Place in Sefer ha-Zohar, Association for Jewish Studies 39th Annual Conference
• November 2007 Kabbalistic Spirituality of the Home: The Divine Feminine and the Domestic Life of Medieval Jewry, The Louis J. Kuriansky Fall 2007 Annual Conference “The Appeal of Kabbalah and Mysticism in Contemporary Culture” at the University of Connecticut
• Dec 2006, The Image of God as a Suckling Mother in Sefer Ha-Zohar, Association for Jewish Studies 38th Annual Conference
• Dec 2005, Metaphor and Mother’s Milk: Suckling as Spiritual Transmission in Rabbinic Literature, Association for Jewish Studies 37th Annual Conference
• Nov 2005 Metaphor, Transformation, and Transcendence: Toward an Understanding of Kabbalistic Imagery in the Book of Zohar, American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting
• Apr 2005 Bathed in Milk: The Image of God as a Suckling Mother in Thirteenth Century Kabbalah, University of Chicago Feminist Theories and the Study of Religion Club panel “Divine Representation: Inversion, Appropriation and Embodiment”