In the fall 2017 Eve-Marie Becker will be joining The Israel Institute for Advanced Studies (IIAS) as an affiliated research fellow. In this period she will be working on the collaborative project “The Subject of Antiquity: Contours and Expressions of the Self in Ancient Mediterranean Cultures”. The project departs from the growing scholarly consensus that new, intensified or modified notions of the Self emerged in Greco-Roman late antiquity different from the ideas embodied in both classical Greek culture and Second-Temple Judaism(s).

Philosophers, artists, law-makers, biographers and authors – such as Paul –, began to conceive of human beings more and more as individuated selves, situated in specific cultural and historical contexts with new opportunities, obligations and restrictions. The research group, situated at the IIAS in 2017/18 in Jerusalem, will examine these emerging discourses of the self, their interaction and expressions, in the material and textual culture of Jewish, Christian, and Roman identities in the Mediterranean world of late antiquity.

Eve-Marie Becker’s research focus will be on “The Self and the Community: Narrative textures and ethical claims in Paul and his contemporaries”. The project is based on her earlier research on how the apostle Paul conceptualizes selfhood in epistolary frames: by narrative and argumentative strategies he molds himself as a “person”, and hereby shapes himself – in terms of subjectivity – as a narrative identity.

“I consider it a great honor to receive this fellowship. Working with other outstanding researchers from various parts of the world, working in different historical and philological disciplines of the Humaniora, at the IIAS gives the opportunity to me to get into more concentrated interdisciplinary exchange of research ideas and results which illuminate the context in which St. Paul as an epistolary author and object of self-reflection can be studied in the early Roman Imperial Time,” says Eve-Marie Becker.

Facts
The Israel Institute for Advanced Studies (IIAS) of Jerusalem is a national institution devoted to academic research. Located at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the primary function of the Institute is to encourage and support collaborative research. Along with collaborative Research Groups, the Institute annually hosts five Advanced Schools as well as many conferences.

The position of affiliated fellow is intended for outstanding researchers from around the world, to work on an important aspect of Asian studies research in the social sciences and humanities.

• Learn More about the Israel Institute for Advanced Studies

Contact
Professor Eve-Marie Becker
Department of Theology, Aarhus University
Mail: eb@cas.au.dk
Phone: +4587162271