Ra'anan (Abusch) Boustan - University of Minnesota

Dept. of Classical and Near Eastern Studies
University of Minnesota
305 Folwell Hall
9 Pleasant Street S.E.
Minneapolis, MN 55455
Ra'anan (Abusch) Boustan
Work: (612)-625-9563
Fax: (612)-624-4894
E-mail rboustan@umn.edu
EDUCATION 2000 – 2003 Princeton University
Ph.D. Department of Religion (Religions of Late Antiquity sub-field)
• Dissertation: “From Martyr to Mystic: The Story of the Ten Martyrs, Hekhalot Rabbati, and the Making of
Merkavah Mysticism”
1997 – 2000 Princeton University
Master’s Degree. Religions of Late Antiquity
• Qualifying exams: Second Temple Judaism (Martha Himmelfarb); New Testament and Early
Christianity (John Gager); Prayer in Late Antiquity (Peter Brown); Early Jewish Mysticism and Magic
(Peter Schäfer)
1996 – 1997 Hebrew University
Visiting Student
• Hebrew language exemption; Hellenistic Greek; Biblical Aramaic; Talmud; Jewish History
1994 – 1995 Universiteit van Amsterdam
Vrij doctoraal. Faculteit der Letteren. Greek, Latin, and Hellenistic Judaism
• Equivalent to Master’s degree, with thesis entitled “The Roman Matron in the Rabbinic Imagination:
Gender and Cultural Exchange”
1990 – 1994 Brown University
Bachelor of Arts. Department of Classics
• Graduated with the highest Latin honor awarded by the college
• Senior Honors thesis: “The Rhetoric of Purity: Allegorical Interpretation in Heraclitus the
Allegorizer and Philo Judaeus”
• Phi Beta Kappa
LANGUAGES Modern Languages (in order of proficiency): Hebrew, Dutch, German, French
Ancient Languages (in order of proficiency): Biblical and Classical Hebrew, Classical and Koine Greek,
Latin, Aramaic, Syriac, Coptic
PUBLICATIONS Books
From Martyr to Mystic: Rabbinic Martyrology and the Making of Merkavah Mysticism, TSAJ (Tübingen: Mohr
Siebeck, forthcoming 2005).
Heavenly Realms and Earthly Realities in Late Antique Religions, edited with Annette Yoshiko Reed (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2004).
Articles
“Introduction” (with Annette Yoshiko Reed) in Heavenly Realms and Earthly Realities in Late Antique Religions
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 1–15.
“Angels in the Architecture: Temple Art and the Poetics of Praise in the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice,” in
Heavenly Realms and Earthly Realities in Late Antique Religions, ed. Ra‘anan S. Boustan and Annette Yoshiko
Reed (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 195–212.
(published under Abusch)
“Circumcision and Castration in Roman Law and Culture under the Early Empire,” in The Covenant of
Circumcision: New Perspectives on an Ancient Jewish Rite, ed. Elizabeth Wyner Mark (Boston: Brandeis
University Press/University Press of New England, 2003), 75–86, notes 220–23.
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PAPERS
PRESENTED
(SELECT)
“Rabbi Ishmael’s Miraculous Conception: Jewish Redemption History in Anti-Christian Polemic,” in The
Ways that Never Parted: Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, ed. Adam H. Becker
and Annette Yoshiko Reed, TSAJ 95 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003), 307–43.
“Negotiating Difference: Genital Mutilation in Roman Slave Law and the History of the Bar Kokhba
Revolt,” in The Bar Kokhba War Reconsidered, ed. Peter Schäfer, TSAJ 100 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck,
2003), 71–91.
“Seven-fold Hymns in the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice and the Hekhalot Literature: Formalism, Hierarchy,
and the Limits of Human Participation,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls as Background to Post-Biblical Judaism and
Early Christianity, ed. James R. Davila, STDJ 46 (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 220–47.
“Eunuchs and Gender Transformation: Philo’s Exegesis of the Joseph Narrative,” in Eunuchs in Antiquity
and Beyond, ed. Shaun Tougher (London: Duckworth, 2002), 103–21.
“The Depiction of the Jews as Typhonians and Josephus’ Strategy of Refutation in Contra Apionem,” (with
Jan Willem van Henten) in Josephus’ Contra Apionem: Studies in its Character and Context, ed. Louis H.
Feldman and John R. Levison, AGJU 34 (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 271–309.
Book Reviews
Vita Daphna Arbel, Beholders of Divine Secrets. Mysticism and Myth in the Hekhalot and Merkavah Literature
(Albany: SUNY Press, 2003), in Journal of the American Oriental Society XX (200X): XXX–XX.
Erich S. Gruen, Diaspora: Jews amidst Greeks and Romans (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002), in
Archiv für Religionsgeschichte 5 (2003): 379–83.
“The Development of Pseudepigraphy in Hekhalot Literature: The Evidence of the Jewish Magical
Corpora of Late Antiquity”
• Association for Jewish Studies Annual Meeting, Chicago, December 2004
“Atoning Self-Sacrifice in Post-talmudic Martyrology: Reflections on the Persistence of Priestly Traditions
in Late Antique Judaism”
• Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting, San Antonio, November 2004
“Review panel for Rachel Elior, The Three Temples: On the Emergence of Jewish Mysticism”
• Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting, San Antonio, November 2004
“The Heavenly Cult of the Martyrs and the Persistence of Priestly Traditions in Late Antique Judaism”
• “Challenging Boundaries: History and Anthropology in Jewish Studies,” Center for Advanced
Judaic Studies, University of Pennsylvania, April 2004.
“Social Asymmetry in Ritual: The Use of the Child Medium in Late Antique Divinatory Rites”
• “Constructions of Childhood in the Ancient World,” Dartmouth College, November 2003.
“Vicarious Atonement in The Story of the Ten Martyrs and Hekhalot Rabbati”
• Association for Jewish Studies Annual Conference, Los Angeles, December 2002.
“The Martyrdom of Emperor Lupinus: Genre Inversion and Identity Inversion in Hekhalot Rabbati”
• Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting, Toronto, November 2002.
“The Physics of Procreation: Miraculous Conception in Late Antique Hagiography”
• “The Ways that Never Parted,” Princeton University, January 2002.
“Circumcision and Castration in Roman Law during the First Two Centuries of the Empire”
• “The Bar Kokhba War Reconsidered,” Princeton University, November 2001.
• International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, May 2001.
“Seven-fold Praise in the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice and the Hekhalot Literature”
• Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting, Denver, November 2001.
• “The Dead Sea Scrolls as Background to Post-Biblical Judaism and Early Christianity,” St.
Andrews, Scotland, June 2001.
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GRANTS
&
AWARDS
EMPLOYMENT
&
PROFESSIONAL
EXPERIENCE
“The Figure of Rabbi Ishmael in the Hekhalot Literature and in Jewish Martyrology”
• Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting, Denver, November 2001.
“Angelic Paternity and Otherworldly Beauty as Aetiologies for Heavenly Ascent”
• European Society of Biblical Literature Summer Meeting, Rome, July 2001.
• “Gods and Monsters: Divinization and Demonization in the Ancient World,” Duke University,
March 2001.
“Angels in the Architecture: Temple Art and the Poetics of Praise in the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice”
• “In Heaven as it is on Earth,” Princeton University, January 2001.
“Eunuchs and Gender Transformation: Philo’s Exegesis of the Joseph Narrative”
• “Eunuchs in Antiquity and Beyond,” University of Wales, July 1998.
Research Fellowship at the Center for Judaic Studies, University of Pennsylvania, 2003–2004
National Foundation for Jewish Culture Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship, 2002–2003
Dorot Travel Award, Association for Jewish Studies Annual Conference, 2002
Whiting Foundation Dissertation Fellowship, 2001–2002
Center for the Study of Religion Dissertation Grant, Princeton University, 2001–2002
Dean’s Fund for Scholarly Travel, Princeton University, 1998, 2000, and 2001
Association of Princeton Graduate Alumni Summer Stipend, 1998 and 1999
Dorot Leadership Program in Israel, Dorot Foundation, 1996–1997
Fulbright Fellowship, The Netherlands, 1994–1995
James Aldridge-Pierce Prize for Best Greek Thesis, Brown University, 1994
Community Award, Brown University, 1994
2004 – Present Department of Classical and Near Eastern Studies, University of Minnesota
Assistant Professor
• Research and teaching interests: early Jewish mysticism, magic, and liturgy; Midrash and Hebrew
narrative literature; Jewish–Christians relations in Late Antiquity; Jewish and Roman law; theory
and method in Religious Studies
2004 – Present AJS Perspectives (Newsletter of the Association for Jewish Studies)
Editorial Board Member
2003 – 2004 Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, University of Pennsylvania
Research Fellow
2002 – 2003 Me’ah Adult Learning Program (Rabbinic Judaism Module)
Lecturer
1999 – 2002 Princeton University
Research assistant for Peter Schäfer
• Translating the Hekhalot-Literature for a new English language edition of the corpus
2000 – 2001 Program in the Ancient World Graduate Student Colloquium, Princeton University
Chair
2000 – 2001 Workshop/Colloquium, Princeton University
Co-organizer
• “In Heaven as it is on Earth: Imagined Realms and Earthly Realities”
1999 - 2001 Princeton University
Teaching assistant
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PROFESSIONAL
SOCIETIES &
ASSOCIATIONS
• Peter Brown: “The Making of the Middle Ages” (Spring 2001)
• Peter Schäfer: “Jewish Mysticism: From the Beginnings to the Kabbalah” (Spring 2000)
• Martha Himmelfarb: “Introduction to the Hebrew Bible” (Fall 1999)
• John Gager: “Introduction to the New Testament and Early Christianity” (Spring 1999)
1999 – 2000 Philadelphia Seminar on Christian Origins, University of Pennsylvania
Co-chair
• “Ethnicity, Regionalism and Religious Developments in Late Antique Egypt”
1995 – 1996 Universiteit van Amsterdam
Research assistant for Profs. Jan Willem van Henten and Athalya Brenner
• Helping revise and translate from Dutch to English: Jan Willem van Henten, The Maccabean
Martyrs as Saviours of the Jewish People (Leiden: Brill, 1997).
• Researching and indexing: Athalya Brenner, Sex and Gender in Ancient Israel (Leiden: Brill, 1997).
American Academy of Religion (AAR)
Association for Jewish Studies (AJS)
Philadelphia Seminar on Christian Origins (PSCO)
Society of Biblical Literature (SBL)
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