Johnson 2004 - CDLI - UCLA

at UC Davis, talked Anthropological Theory with me whenever he had a spare moment
and remained my theoretical interlocutor for years. Frances and Anniken taught me
many, many things, and Jonah and Amira taught me everything else.
The Divinity School at the University of Chicago was a strange and wonderful place
and, through the good offices of Arthur Droge, Dennis Pardee and Michael Silverstein, I
actually managed to learn a few things while I was there. Jonathan Z. Smith talked me
out of being several things and into being a historian, all the while dispensing pearls of
great price that I couldn’t have found anywhere else, and Pia found me a job at the
Faculty Club and spent countless hours talking to me about History of Religions and
Jonathan Z. Smith.
When I came to UCLA, Antonio Loprieno welcomed me with open arms, gave me
enough money to live on and waived every requirement that he could so that I would
have more time to work on the languages that I wanted to know and came to UCLA to
learn. Thanks to Giorgio Buccellati for introducing me to cuneiform and teaching me
Akkadian and to Yona Sabar for teaching Aramaic and helping me understand the
bureaucracy at UCLA. Bill Schniedewind spent hours and hours helping me to
understand the Hebrew Bible and has continued, throughout my time at UCLA, to
support my work in all kinds of ways. Likewise, whether dispensing sage advice or
explaining the subtleties of topic and focus in Egyptian, Loprieno’s efforts on my behalf
have been unceasing. Michael Fishbein and Michael Cooperson welcomed me into their
Arabic classes, Elizabeth Carter taught me about seals and archaeology and Elam, and
Paul Kroskrity, about language and culture and ideology. Asif Agha picked up my
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