Dr. Catherine Bonesho

Catherine E. Bonesho is an Assistant Professor of Early Judaism in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at UCLA. Her research focuses on the history, languages, literature, and culture of Judaism in the Second Temple and Rabbinic periods with the goal of locating these texts in their imperial contexts. Specifically, Bonesho is interested in the ways ancient Jews navigate living under imperial domination through the development of legislation and rhetoric about the Other. Bonesho also concentrates on the Roman Near East and Semitic languages, especially Aramaic dialects, and their use in imperial contexts. Bonesho was a 2017-2018 Rome Prize Fellow in Ancient Studies at the American Academy in Rome and a 2021-2022 Frankel Fellow at the University of Michigan. She earned her PhD in Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies (2018) and her MA in Hebrew and Semitic Studies (2014) from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.