Lecturers - JEWISH STUDIES AT UC DAVIS

 

 

Kengo Akiyama teaches Biblical Hebrew and Abrahamic Religions at UC Davis. His research focuses mainly on the development of ethical thinking and scriptural interpretation in ancient Judaism. For his doctoral research, he examined the priestly command to love the neighbor in the Hebrew Bible and its subsequent reception in ancient Judaism and early Christianity. His current research project investigates the intersection between Judaism and Hellenism in the ancient world, in particular the influence of Hellenistic moral philosophical discourse on Jewish interpersonal ethics.
 

Itay Eisinger earned a PhD in intellectual History from the University of Texas at Austin. Born and raised in northern Israel, he received a dual BA in Philosophy and Literature from Tel Aviv University (both magna cum laude). He worked as a Reader for a major publishing house in Israel and taught conflict resolution at Givat Haviva—The Center for a Shared Society. He also holds an MA in Middle Eastern Studies from the Graduate Center of CUNY, the City University of New York. His PhD dissertation - “The Dystopian Turn in Hebrew Literature” - focuses on modern Israel’s intellectual history and on the genealogy of dystopian thought in both Zionist discourse and in Hebrew literature. His article—"War of the Sexes"—which deals with "Israeli feminist militarism" is currently under review. His next project focuses on the late political thought of Noam Chomksy, Theodor Adorno and Herbert Marcuse. He is a recipient of the Churchill Fellowship (British Studies, UT).
Itay has published poems in Haaretz, Yediot Ahronot and other Hebrew and English magazines; his first poetry book (“Isaiah, Berlin”) will be published in Hebrew in 2021.

 

Wendy R Terry has a PhD in Christian Spirituality from the Graduate Theological Union and is a Lecturer in the Religious Studies Program. She regularly teaches the department's lower division survey courses, the upper division methods course required of majors and minors, as well as biblical studies courses. Her research foci include Christian Spirituality, History of Christianity, medieval mysticism, and the application of tools from Linguistics to the study of historical texts.