reading . . .

Out of curiosity, approximately how many pages of secondary literature does everyone read on a weekly basis? How does that compare with the amount of primary literature you read?

I'm merely curious to see how everyone balances their "work" time between classes/teaching, administrative tasks, and research.

lectures . . .

Several notable lectures upcoming here at Berkeley. Two this week.

Monday, 28 Sept, 4:00-5:00p
"The Emerging Story of Babylonian Astronomy"
John P. Britton
John P. Britton's (Ph.D., Yale) "The Emerging Story of Babylonian Astronomy" will emphasize recent discoveries illuminating the main elements in the emergence of scientific astronomy in Babylon. Newly discovered texts will be used to extend our narrative of the history of Babylonian astronomy, linking earlier to later developments. He will also address some questions about the place of Babylonian astronomy in the society of ancient Mesopotamia, to which more traditional Assyriological investigations might contribute.

Wednesday, 30 Sept, 4:00-6:00p
"The Army of the Kings of Ur"
Bertrand Lafont
Bertrand Lafont (CNRS, Paris) will discuss his recent research in Sumerian armies and soldiers. Kings of the Third Dynasty of Ur (ca. 2100-2000 BCE) led their armies to the North and to the East. They conquered numerous cities and brought back booty. Yet, the tens of thousands of administrative texts from the period have revealed suprisingly little about the organization and management of the army. Dr. Lafont recently published his study "The Army of the Kings of Ur: The Textual Evidence" in CDLJ 2009/5.

In October:
Matt Stolper (Chicago) will give a presentation on the Persepolis Fortress archives after the event at Stanford
Eleanor Robson (Cambridge) will be presenting a lecture on Babylonian maths

In November:
Amelie Kuhrt (UCL) will be giving the annual Pritchett lecture

I'll likely post further information on these talks as they approach.

conjugations . . .

Many years ago, my Greek professor showed us this clip from Monty Python's The Life of Brian (which is, by the way, the best satire on Jerusalem in the Second Temple Period) and threatened to introduce these pedagogical methods in his class . . . I've often considered the merits of this approach . . . I guarantee that no student will ever forget the language you're teaching . . .

Setting the scene, Brian (a character constantly mistaken as a messianic figure throughout the film) has joined one the many Jewish splinter groups. As an act of initiation, he must commit an act of vandalism . . .

memory/identity . . .

The Berkeley Near Eastern Studies department's Memory and Identity working group had the first meeting of the semester this past Wednesday, so I thought I'd give the group a plug out in the "wider world" (or at least as wide as my few readers).

This year's theme is "social imaginaries" . . . and the group has been expanded to survey the concept in both the ancient and modern near east (last year, the group's first year, covered only the ancient). This means that the speakers and the group interactions are rather diverse with topics ranging from ancient historiography, art history, archaeology, texts, film, and modern literature.

We've got a good slate of speakers from various disciplines meeting on (essentially) an every-other-week schedule, so if you ever have reason to be in the Bay Area during one of these sessions, stop in and join the conversation. More information at the Memory and Identity working group's website: berkeleymemoryid.com.

austin . . .

As everyone knows, a few weeks ago on the Agade list came the surprising announcement of a relocation for Hackett and Huehnergard. I've personally been hesitant to think it permanent (that is, not a visiting arrangement) if only for the incredulity of such a dual appointment . . . especially during these economic times and at UT-Austin (a state school!) which has not had a great tradition for ancient Semitics (also, Austin recently hired Huehnergard's student Naama Pat-el as an Assistant Professor teaching comparative Semitics, so hiring Huehnergard seemed like overkill). Furthermore, neither UT-Austin nor Harvard had made any official announcement.

However the UT Middle Eastern Studies department website (which has gotten quite a makeover) included a link to an article about UT's hiring of female faculty including . . . Jo Ann Hackett. The duo has also been added to the MES faculty on the website. So it appears to be very much official . . . and I'm still a bit in shell-shock.

Here are the relevent paragraphs on Hackett:

Among the incoming faculty members are Jo Ann Hackett, former director of graduate studies in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard, and her husband John Huehnergard, a former chair of that department.

"Everybody knows about the University of Texas and the quality of the languages and linguistics programs and we've always known this was a marvelous place," said Hackett, a Semitic language and Hebrew Bible scholar who will teach in the Department of Middle Eastern Studies. "We were in Austin for two days visiting and we left and we said, 'we've got to do this.'"

epiphany . . .

You know those times when you're reading a text and all of a sudden an idea just pops out at you? I had one of those today.

I was going through several forms of a Sumerian verb looking for morpho-syntactic patterns while thinking about my project for my syntax class when something related to the syntactic theory I'm operating under but not at all what I was looking for jumped up and hit me. Well, maybe not quite that dramatic . . . it was more like it tapped me on the shoulder . . . over and over again . . . and then a few minutes later whacked me upside the head (I never had younger siblings, but I imagine this experience would be similar) . . . one of those grammatical Oh! Ohhhhhhhh!!!! (literally . . . I said that out loud . . . ) moments.

If I'm right about this, it could answer some nagging questions I've had about Sumerian syntax. Even better, it relates to my long-term projects (assuming I continue to work via this syntactic theory).

Sorry, I'm speaking in vagaries, but I need to check other texts and review the theory . . . but I definitely think I've stumbled upon something. Of course, it's probably something that Sumerologists wouldn't care about . . . come to think of it, I don't know if linguists would care about it much either (although it does have some typological implications) . . . huh . . . well, at least I care about it . . .

survey . . .

I've got to write a (very) short paper on an issue of language contact. Obviously, I'm going to do something with the ANE. I've got two options:

1. Something in the realm of Sumerian-Akkadian (probably something related to the possibility of the Sumerian terminative še₃ in the Akkadian -ši in a lot of dative forms/-iš locative/dative morpheme (see Pedersen in fs. Sjöberg)
   
2. Word order of Amarna Akkadian (canonical Akkadian is SOV; canonical Amarna is VOS)
   

Thoughts?

hazards . . .

I'm going to steal a line (or at least paraphrase) from one of my summer linguistics professors (Van Valin):

One of the job hazards of studying syntax is that you lose all sense of natural grammar. Too many "ungrammatical" constructions start to sound just fine . . .

I find this all the time. Often when I read an example in lx works marked by * (for ungrammatical), I sit there for a bit thinking that sounds perfectly fine until I eventually realize it doesn't.

Yesterday for example, I came across this sentence in a text:

*Into the room walked John_i and __i spoke to Pat immediately.

It took me about three minutes to convince myself that it really didn't sound right and wasn't good English . . .