The OCHJS hosts a number of visiting academics each year through the following 3 status options.
Visiting Fellows
Visiting Fellowships of the Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies are available for postdoctoral researchers and senior scholars through our Oxford Seminars in Advanced Jewish Studies programme, which hosts four streams of Visiting Fellowships: Salo & Jeannette Baron Visiting Fellowships in Jewish History, René & Susanne Braginsky Visiting Fellowships in Manuscript Studies, OSRJL Visiting Fellowships in Rare Jewish Languages and Yishai Shahar Visiting Fellowships in Jewish Art History. Visiting Fellows are invited to participate in and contribute to the OCHJS’s academic activities (all of which are conducted in English), given shared office space at the Clarendon Institute, issued individual University Cards and receive honoraria. They may be invited to present a paper relating to their research should a suitable opportunity arise. Calls for applications are posted each academic year; to see if any are currently open, click the button below.
Current Visiting Fellows
Dr Dean Irwin
Visiting Fellow in Anglo-Jewish Medieval History
My doctoral work, at Canterbury Christ Church University, examined the records generated by Jewish moneylending activities between 1194 and 1275/6. Now, working outside of conventional academia, I pursue my many esoteric interests into medieval Anglo-Jewish history. This work is undertaken as a Visiting Fellow at the University of Lincoln and, now, Visiting Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies (both in the historical diocese of Lincoln!).
At present, I am writing a book, under contract with Palgrave MacMillan, exploring Jews and Christians as Neighbours in the Towns of Medieval England (due 2027). Additionally, I am editing a volume of twelve essays on The Medieval Lincoln Jewry (Arc Humanities Press, due 2025), and co-editing Hebrew and Hebrew-Latin Documents from Medieval England, vol. 3, with Judith Olszowy-Schlanger. I speak regularly at national and international conferences, as well as organising panels, on all aspects of medieval Anglo-Jewish history, and have published a series of article length studies exploring acknowledgements of debt, the archae system, King John, and the social structure of the London Jewry. I also support community outreach programmes.
At the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, I co-convene a postgraduate seminar once a term with Judith Olszowy-Schlanger, looking at Medieval Anglo-Jewish Texts & History. Here we introduce postgraduate students to reading both Latin and Hebrew texts from medieval England. I also provide support to doctoral projects which fall within my area of specialism.
Professor Dr Susanne Marten-Finnis
Leverhulme Emeritus Visiting Fellow
I am a Professor of Applied Linguistics (Emerita) at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Portsmouth. I also hold an appointment at the University of Bremen and Leverhulme Emeritus Fellowship at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies.
In my publications, I explore the nexus between Jewish literary activities and European thought. My focus is on the multilingual Jewish press in the European borderlands and the countries of former Jewish residency and migration.
Other research topics of mine include Jewish agency in post-1917 Russian Emigration and the Sephardic contribution to the geopolitics of transition in Early Modern Poland.
Visiting Scholars
Visiting Scholars—senior scholars accepted by application to the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies who come to Oxford to work on their current, independent research projects—are advised on how to apply for a Bodleian Readers Card to access the Bodleian Libraries as well as given access to shared office space in the Clarendon Institute. Visiting Scholars are invited and encouraged to attend and participate in the academic activities of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, all of which are conducted in English. They may be invited to present a paper relating to their research should a suitable opportunity arise.
Individuals wishing to be academic visitors at the University of Oxford and obtain a University Card may apply to be affiliated with the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies (AMES). For information, please email Trudi Pinkerton at trudi.pinkerton@ames.ox.ac.uk.
Current Visiting Scholars
Dr Emily Rose
I am a scholar of Medieval and Early Modern Europe, whose work has been hailed as ‘a model of thoroughgoing historical scholarship presented to a general audience and should be studied by scholars who wish to bring the humanities to the public square’. A graduate of Oxford with an Honours degree in Modern History, I have taught British, European History and Jewish Studies at five universities.
My project at OCHJS examines ‘Expulsion (1290), “Re-admission” (1656), Celebration (1906): Jews of England and the Construction of a National Identity’.
My first book, The Murder of William of Norwich: The Origins of the Blood Libel in Medieval Europe (Oxford University Press, 2015) was named one of the ‘Ten Best History Books of the Year’ by the Sunday Times of London and described by the Wall Street Journal as ‘a landmark of historical research’. The American Historical Review called it ‘a significant achievement’ and the AJS Review described it as ‘a truly excellent book. It deserves to be read and studied by scholars in many if not all fields of medieval studies’. It won the Ralph Waldo Emerson award from the Phi Beta Kappa Association and was awarded the 2017 Albert C. Outler Prize of the American Society for Church History for the best ecumenical church history monograph of the past two years.
I have also published on Christian-Jewish relations in late Antiquity, and on European politics and finance in the early Modern world. My articles have appeared in Parliamentary History, the Huntington Library Quarterly, JEGP, Studies in the Age of Chaucer and Viator among others. My essay on ‘Blood Libel, Crusades and Popular Violence’ appeared in The Cambridge Companion to the History of Antisemitism (2022).
Dr Aadel Shakkour
I received my MA cum laude in Hebrew and Semitic Languages from Bar-Ilan University, Israel, in 2009 and my PhD from the same institution in 2011. I spent two years as a postdoctoral researcher there (2012-2013) and a year in the Department of Hebrew Language and Literature of Haifa University, Israel (2014-2015). I spent four months as a Visiting Researcher at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Department of Communication, and about four months as a visiting researcher at Lancaster University, Department of English; University of Cambridge, Centre of Islamic Studies; and, of course, the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies.
Junior Visiting Scholars
Individuals advanced in their doctoral or postdoctoral work may apply for Junior Visiting Scholar status at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies to carry out their own independent research. Junior Visiting Scholars are invited to attend and participate in the events and activities of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies (all of which are conducted in English) and will be advised as to how they may apply for a Bodleian Readers Card to access the Bodleian Library system. However, Junior Visiting Scholars are not permitted to participate in activities of the University of Oxford more broadly; those wishing to do so must apply for visiting student status separately through the University and at a cost.
Current Junior Visiting Scholars
There are no Junior Visiting Scholars at this time.