Ellen Haskell
Herman & Zelda Bernard Distinguished Professor of Jewish Studies, Professor of History, and Director of Jewish Studies
History
Email Address: edhaskel@uncg.edu
Office: 2123 MHRA
Education
- Ph.D. History of Judaism, University of Chicago Divinity School
- A.M. Religious Studies, University of Chicago Divinity School
- B.A. Religious Studies and Anthropology, University of Michigan
Academic Positions
- Professor of History, UNCG, 2024-present
- Professor of Religious Studies, UNCG, 2018-2024
- Director, UNCG Jewish Studies Program, 2014-present
- Associate Professor of Religious Studies, UNCG, 2013-2018
- Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, UNCG, 2007-2013
- Visiting Assistant Professor of Religious Studies and Judaic Studies, Franklin & Marshall College, 2005-2007
Research Interests
- Kabbalah and Jewish Mysticism
- History of Jewish Thought
- Medieval Judaism
- Jewish Responses to Christianity
- Gender and Embodiment in Judaism
- Metaphor Theory
Current Project
Medieval Jews and Christians shared a tradition inherited from the ancient Mediterranean world of reading faces for personal, political, and spiritual information. Among Jews, this practice was especially complex, since Jews both practiced facial interpretation and were its unwilling targets; precursors to racism were alive and well in medieval Europe. My current book project, Facing God and Each Other: Physiognomic Encounter in Sefer ha-Zohar, explores the cultural setting, techniques, and ethics of Jewish facial interpretation in the thirteenth-century mystical classic known as the Zohar. The mystics who composed this work interrogated physiognomy’s moral ambiguity even as they used it to determine who among their fellow Jews was worthy to receive secrets in a time of persecution. Studying medieval facial interpretation allows entry into broader cultural issues including power relations between and among religions, the history of European racism, religious and ableist discrimination, and interpersonal ethics.
Courses Taught
- HIS 202 Hebrew Bible as History
- HIS 225 Judaism in History and Practice
- HIS 241 American Jewish Medical Ethics
- HIS 242 Jews, Bodies, Race
- HIS 310 Daughters of Eve: Women in the Middle Ages
- HIS 331 Judaism, Gender, and Sexuality
- HIS 352 Topics in Ancient Judaism
- HIS 367 Modern Jewish Thought
- HIS 372 Topics in Jewish History: Antisemitism
- HIS 372 Topics in Jewish History: Jewish Mysticism
- HIS 442 Middle Ages: Medieval Jews & Christians
Selected Publications
Monographs
Mystical Resistance: Uncovering the Zohar’s Conversations with Christianity. New York:
Oxford University Press, 2016
Suckling at My Mother’s Breasts: The Image of a Nursing God in Jewish Mysticism. Albany:
SUNY, 2012
Selected Book Chapters and Journal Articles
“The Effaced Eagle-Man and Other Problems: Reincarnated Embodiment in Guf ha-Zohar,” in
The Life of the Soul: Jewish Perspectives on Reincarnation from the Middle Ages to the
Modern Period, eds. Andrea Gondos and Leore Sachs-Shmueli. NY: SUNY Press, 2024
“The Power of Interpretation and the Interpretation of Power: Physiognomy and the Masters of
Secrets,” in Jewish Culture and Creativity: Essays in Honor of Professor Michael Fishbane on
the Occasion of His Eightieth Birthday, ed. Eitan P. Fishbane and Elisha Russ-Fishbane.
Boston, MA: Academic Studies Press, 2023
“Countenancing God: Facial Revelation and Physiognomy in Sefer ha-Zohar.” Journal of
Religion 101:2 (2021): 151-182
“A Composite Countenance: The Divine Face as Mixed Metaphor in Jewish Mysticism.” In
Religion, Language, and the Human Mind, ed. Paul Chilton and Monika Kopitowska. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2018
“The Death of Rachel and the Kingdom of Heaven: Jewish Engagement with Christian
Themes in Sefer ha-Zohar.” Journal of Medieval Religious Cultures 38:1 (2012): 1-31