My path is not as interesting as David's, but still a winding one! I did my undergraduate work at Wake Forest University where I focused on Native American religions. I was lucky enough to attend a school with a Religion Department and a requirement to take a course in that Department or I don't think I ever would have been exposed to what has now become my life's passion. After studying ritual on reservations in Arizona I just felt a calling pushing me further back in time. I ended up doing an MTS (academic degree, not MDiv!) at Candler School of Theology, Emory University. Due to my late entrance into the field of ancient studies, I did another Masters, this time in Near Eastern Studies at Brandeis. Finally I started my PhD at Brown University in the Department of Religious Studies with a primary field of Israelite Religion and minor fields in Egyptology and Assyriology. While, of course, it would be nicer to have found my passion when I was younger (particularly being able to do some of the now 20+ languages on my CV at a slower pace), my winding path has been a major benefit as I largely used modern socio-anthropological methods in my undergrad work which I am now comfortable using in my study of the ancient world. Having studied living cultures through these lenses, I think I am able to see the peoples of the ancient world as truly living peoples. My undergrad work also informs my primary topic of study as I focus on resistance (or counter-hegemony as I call it), particularly through the record of ritual texts and archaeology - an area of importance in Native American studies which I now look at in the ancient world.
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