MELC Updates 2024-2025

Faculty Updates

Shai David Ben Ami

• A current Israel Institute and ISEF Fellow, he has joined the MELC faculty for the 2024-2025 academic year.
• Published a new book in Hebrew, “The Zionist Zoo: The History of Zoos in Israel.” https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://resling.co.il/product/**C-**I-**K/_…$

Canan Bolel

• Organized Ladino Day 2024
• Published ““What’s behind the “L.”?” AJS Perspectives, December 2024.
• Published “Butchers, Rabbis, Foreignness—and Tax Revenue,” Ayin Press (forthcoming).
• Reviewed The Diario: The Daring Escape of Two Sephardic Jews from Turkey to America During World War I (Albion-Andalus Books, 2024) in Sephardic Horizons (forthcoming); and The 1840 Rhodes Blood Libel Ottoman Jews at the Dawn of the Tanzimat Era (New York: Berghahn Books, 2024) in Journal of Modern Jewish Studies (forthcoming).
• Presented “Voicing in Ladino, Translating into Ladino: The Sephardic Holocaust on Paper,” Sephardic Jewish Voices and Experiences in the Holocaust Conference, Pacific Lutheran University, November 2024.
• Presented “Navigating the Waves of Anarchy: Apathy within the Jewish Community of Istanbul and the Dynamics of Philanthropy in the 1930s.” The Politics of Giving in the Late Ottoman Empire and Early Turkish Republic (1853-1950), Skilliter Centre for Ottoman Studies, Newnham College, University of Cambridge, July 2024.
• Participated in the American Academy for Jewish Research / Early Career Workshop. Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts, July 2024.
• Presented a public talk, “Introduction to Sephardic Mysticism and Folk Medicine,” Los Muevos Ladineros (group for Ladino enthusiasts), The Summit, November 2024.
• Presented a public talk, “A Brief Introduction to Sephardic History and Culture,” Seattle Jewish Community School, October 2024.
• Travelled to Edinburgh for research (summer 2024).

Hussein Elkhafaifi

• Received an award for exemplary service to the Arab community of the Pacific Northwest, April 2024.
• Received The American Association of Teachers of Arabic Lifetime Achievement Award, November 2024.

Aria Fani

• Aria’s co-translations–along with the poet Adeeba Shahid Talukder–of the modernist poet Bijan Jalali are slated to be published by Asemana Books in May.
• Organized events for the Translation Studies Hub (funded by the Simpson Center for the Humanities), the Middle East Center (JSIS), and MELC’s Persian and Iranian Studies program.

Hadar Khazzam-Horowitz

• Received the Outstanding Instructor in Jewish Studies Award for 2023-2024, alongside Kathryn Medill, also of MELC.

Selim S. Kuru

• Conducted research on two projects during his sabbatical leave 2023-2024, one an edition and translation of four verse-narratives from the late 18th century found in a manuscript in David Sammlung, Copenhagen, Denmark; and the other on “Rulership and Poetry in the Ottoman Empire: The Case of Mehemmed II.”
• Presented on “Young Men and Women of the World Versified: Climate, Ethnicity and Sex in Fazıl Bey (1757-1810)’s Verse Narratives Hûbân-nâme and Zenân-name (ca. 1792, 1793)” at Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at Oxford University (January 3, 2024).
• Published a book chapter, “Sex in Sixteenth-Century Istanbul.” Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks and Mathew Kuefler, eds. The Cambridge World History of Sexualities. Volume 3.

Talant Mawkanuli

• Published Uyghur Talking Dictionary (Swarthmore College, 2024).
• Presented on “Translation Deviations in Multilingual Primary Source Documents in the Russian Colonial Archives,” at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, Tokyo, Japan (July 1, 2024).
• Presented on “Colonization and the Sociolinguistic Context of Qazaq,” at the 60th Annual Conference of Japan Altai Society (Nojiriko Khuriltai), in Nagano, Japan (June 29, 2024).
• Presented on “Transformative potential of computational linguistics in Qazaq studies,” at Al-Farabi Kazak National University, Almaty, Kazakhstan (May 2, 2024).
• Presented on “Linguistic Value of Qazaq Khan's documents and Digital Methodologies,” at International Shoqan Studies Conference at Ualikhanov University, Kokshetaw, Kazakhstan (April 26, 2024).

Kathryn Medill

• Received the Outstanding Instructor in Jewish Studies Award for 2023-2024, alongside Hadar Khazzam-Horowitz, also of MELC.
• Presented on “Pursuit and Following Constructions in Biblical Hebrew” at the Society for Biblical Literature’s 2024 Annual Meeting.
• Published reviews of Kim’s Hebrew Forms of Address and Person’s Scribal Memory and Word Selection in Catholic Biblical Quarterly.
• Created new courses on “Wisdom Literature in the Bible and the Ancient Near East,” “Women in the Ancient Middle East,” and “Introduction to Myths of the Ancient Middle East.”

Elham Monfaredi

• Published a book chapter, “Persian Chiz: A Means of Designing Word Searches and Managing Delicacy” in the Handbook of Teaching and Learning Persian as a Second Language, Hooman Saeli (Eds).
• Co-authored a paper on the versatile token khob in Persian extended tellings (Achieving multi-unit turns | John Benjamins).

Amina Moujtahid

• Co-authored and published a new book, The Combinatorial House of Wisdom: A Guided Classical Arabic Reader in the Exact and Rational Sciences (Zaytuna Curriculum Series). Find it here: The Combinatorial House of Wisdom - The First Arabic Dictionary, the Rhythms of Arabic Verse, and the Invention of Algebra.

Scott Noegel

• Finished monograph now under consideration at a publisher: Ambiguity and Empire: A Literary Appreciation and Commentary for the Book of Daniel.
• Invited talk: “Ancient Near Eastern Poetic Repetition in the Light of Neuroscience.” Workshop on Repetition, Parallelism and Creativity: An Inquiry into the Construction of Meaning in Ancient Mesopotamian Literature and Erudition. University of Vienna. February 29, 2024.
• New articles that just appeared or are now in press: “Scale Scriptitious: The Concentration of Divine Power in the Ancient Near East,” Talanta 54 (2022), pp. 11-30. Backdated, appeared in 2024; “Taxonomic Approaches to Biblical Animals,” in Suzanna Millar, ed., The Oxford Handbook of the Bible and Animals (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2024), “Prophecy, Gastronomic Ghosts, and Oracular Flatulence: On the Substance of Spirit in Ancient Israel and Mesopotamia,” in Robin Baker, ed., Religion: The Bible and Ancient Mesopotamia (2024), “Ancient Near Eastern Poetic Repetition in the Light of Neuroscience,” in Nicla de Zorzi, ed., Volume Title to Be Determined (Workshop on Textual Repetition and Creativity in Ancient Mesopotamia, Israel, Egypt and China),  “Historiolae in the Hebrew Bible,” Archiv für Religionsgeschichte 26 (2024), 283-314; “Eyelids of the Dawn,” in Andreas Johandi, ed., Biblical Job in the Literary Network of the Ancient Near East (Kasion-Publikationen zur ostmediterranen Antike; Münster: Zaphon, 2024), in press; “Antanaclasis in the Ugaritic Poetic Epics,” Ugarit Forschungen 53 (2022), 97-129, backdated, appeared in 2024; “Not So Black and White: On Hair, Skin, Horses, and Heat in the Hebrew Bible,” in Ellena Lyell, ed., Colour and Culture: Polychromy and Perception in the Hebrew Bible (The Hebrew Bible in Social Perspective; Bloomsbury: T&T Clark, 2004), in press; “Hidden in Hides: An Unrecognized Motif of Deception in the Hebrew Bible,” in Yonatan S. Miller, ed., The Motif in Biblical Literature: Contours, Critiques, and New Horizons, in press; “‘To Make Them See Your Majesty’: The Visual Program of the ‘Poetical Stela’ of Thuthmosis III,” in Rita Lucarelli, et al., eds., Rethinking the Visual Aesthetics of Ancient Egyptian Writing (Oxford: Archeopress Publishing), in press; “Near Eastern Poetics in Callimachus’ Hymn to Apollo,” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 113 (2023), 142-199, co-authored with James J. Clauss, backdated, appeared in 2024; “The Narrator in the Epics from Ugarit,” Ugarit Forschungen 54 (2023), in press, backdated, will appear in 2025.

Stephanie Selover

• Now the new Chair of the MELC Department.
• Awarded a 2024 Site Preservation Grant by the American Institute of Archaeology for the Moabite site of Khirbet al-Balu`a, Jordan
• Presented “Fire Installations and Social Memory in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age I Çadır Höyük” at the American Society of Overseas Research Annual Conference, November, 2024.

Naomi Sokoloff

• Student Translation Project Coordinator: The Community of Bacau https://www.jewishgen.org/Yizkor/Bacau1/Bacau1.html
• Presented “Translation Projects for Hebrew Students” at the National Association of Professor Hebrew Annual Meeting, held at UW June 2024.
• Interview: “Not a Good Time for Hebrew” – Conversation with author Maya Arad – NAPH annual conference, held at UW, June 2024.
• Presented a public talk, “Israeli Writers and Writing after October 7” at UW, January 2024.
• Acted as coordinator and teacher trainer for a new course at Northwest Yeshiva High School, modeled on MODHEB 408, offered by teacher Tali Rothstein in 2024-2025, as part of the UW in the High Schools program.

Mehari Worku

• Joined the MELC faculty as the new Assistant Teaching Professor in Horn of Africa Studies.

Melike Yucel-Koc

• Awarded the Pacific Northwest Postsecondary Language Educator of the Year Award for 2024 by the Pacific Northwest Council for Languages.
• Awarded the Writing@UW Fellowship for Gateway to the Middle East Course. This program takes place during Winter & Spring  Quarter 2025 and introduces a new partner model, encouraging faculty to collaborate within their departments or closely affiliated units. Fellows work together to (re)envision writing in their disciplines and refine their teaching and learning practices. Fellows participate in weekly meetings to engage with WID/WAC scholarship, discuss key issues such as multilingual learners and writing, antiracist assessment practices, and ethical use of AI, and workshop their project plans.
• Winter ACTFL Workshop & LCTL Task force with the Language Learning Center.
• Taught “Oral History: Immigrants from the Middle East” course in the UW’s Honors’ Program, and started a new section for archiving the narratives of the immigrants from the Middle East in PNW region.
• Conducted research on Oral History and worked in collaboration with the Language Learning Center.
• Acted as Turkey in Seattle Oral History Project Director & Coordinator at UW, supervised undergraduate and graduate interns who are UW students.
• Served at American Association of Teachers of Turkic Languages Task Force Board
• Served as the steering committee member for Seattle Turkish Film Festival, which is part of TACAWA, Turkish American Cultural Association of Washington.
• Served as director of the “Stories of Seattle Communities Project” for the International Children’s Friendship Festival, organized by Turkish American Cultural Association of Washington.
• Served as the volunteer coordinator for Turkfest, the Turkish Festival and the International Children’s Friendship Festival to connect Turkish language learners at UW with the Turkish American community in Washington. 
• Presented the Oral History Project and Introduction to Turkish language at the Turkfest, 2024.

Student Updates

Adrian Brunke

• Awarded the AATT Redhouse Prize for Best Progress in the Turkish Language.

Corinna Nichols (Ph.D. NMES)

• Presented “Hair and Gender in the Ancient Middle East,” for MELC 308, “Women in the Ancient Middle East” (January 2025).

Brianna Voss (MA MELC)

• Taught Arabic at Seattle University.
• Research Assistant for the Svoboda Diaries Project at UW.

Students working with Prof. Naomi Sokoloff

The following students who were enrolled in MODHEB 408 and/or MODHEB 490 completed translations (from Hebrew to English) of chapters in a memorial book commemorating the Jewish community of Bacău, Romania. Their work has been published at https://www.jewishgen.org/Yizkor/Bacau1/Bacau1.html

• Jacob Coffler
• Olivia Feldman
• Talia Hess
• Suhyeon Kim
• Jacob Klatzker
• Shirley Zabetski
• Megan Sarkissian
• Mor Vered

Alumni Updates

Susanna Bluhm (MA 2024, Comparative Religion)

• Accepted to Pluralistic Rabbinical Seminary.

Purnima Dhavan (History)

• Giovanni and Ann Costigan Endowed Professor, 2024-2027.
• Coauthored a book with Heidi Pauwels, Vali Dakhani and the Early Rekhtah Networks: Sharing Poetry’s Pleasures (Bloomsbury Press, 2025).
• Published “A Feast for the Heart and Mind: Print Culture, Polemics, and Religious Debate in Punjab,” ed. Anshu Malhotra, Punjabi Centuries (Hyderabad, Orient Black Swan, 2024).
• Presented “Through Other Eyes: Humans, Animals, and Affect in Urdu Poetry,” Association of Asian Studies, 2025.
• Presented “Making Urban Lahore: Neighborhood, Land Speculation, and Urban Construction in a Mughal City,” for Symposium on Everyday Life in Mughal India at the Annual South Asia Conference, Madison (October, 2024).

Elizabeth Ferauge (MA 2024, Comparative Religion)

• Accepted to and attending the doctoral program in Religion at Columbia University.

Forrest Martin (MA 2023)

• Awarded a fellowship by the Tam Institute for Jewish Studies for his doctoral work at Emory University.