Education

• PhD, Classical and Ancient Near Eastern StudiesUniversity of Wisconsin-Madison, 2018
• MA, Hebrew and Semitic Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2014
• BA, Classical Languages and Biology, Macalester College, 2008

Research

Catherine E. Bonesho is an Assistant Professor in Early Judaism in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at UCLA. Her research focuses on locating the history, languages, literature, and culture of Judaism in the Second Temple and Rabbinic periods in their imperial contexts. Specifically, she is interested in the ways ancient Jews navigated living under imperial domination through the development of legislation and rhetoric about the Other. She is currently working on her first monograph on the polemic of foreign holidays and festivals in rabbinic literature. Bonesho’s research also concentrates on the Roman Near East and Semitic languages, especially Aramaic, and their use in imperial contexts. In particular, she investigates the material presentation of Aramaic inscriptions found throughout the Roman Empire. She has co-authored translation and paleographic articles on Palmyrene Aramaic inscriptions as one of the founding members of the Wisconsin Palmyrene Aramaic Inscription Project in journals including Maarav and KUSATU. She spent the 2017-2018 academic year in Rome as a Rome Prize Fellow in Ancient Studies at the American Academy in Rome (FAAR ‘18). Bonesho 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.

Articles

• “Holidays and Festivals as Representative of Identity in Rabbinic Literature,” Ancient Jew Review, November 20, 2019 (https://www.ancientjewreview.com/articles/2019/7/30/foreign-holidays-and-festivals-as-representative-of-identity-in-rabbinic-literature-a-dissertation-spotlight).
• “Aesthetic of Empire: Material Presentation of Palmyrene Aramaic and Latin Bilingual Inscriptions,” Maarav 23.1–2 (2019): 207–28, 274–75.
• Eleonora Cussini, Maura K. Heyn, Jeremy M. Hutton, Nathaniel E. Greene, and Catherine E. Bonesho, “The Harvard Semitic Museum Palmyrene Collection,” BASOR 380 (2018): 231-46.
• Jeremy M. Hutton, Preston L. Atwood, Catherine E. Bonesho, and Nathaniel E. Greene, “Divergent Script-Styles on a Single Palmyrene Monument: The Case of Berkshire 1903.7.3 (PAT 0670 and 0672),” KUSATU 23 (2018): 33-70.
• Preston L. Atwood, Jeremy M. Hutton, Nathaniel E. Greene, and Catherine E. Bonesho, “A New Reading of PAT 0670 (= CIS 4313),” KUSATU 23 (2018): 9-31.
• Jeremy M. Hutton and Catherine E. Bonesho, “Interpreting Translation Techniques and Material Presentation in Bilingual Texts: Initial Methodological Reflections,” in Epigraphy, Philology, and the Hebrew Bible, ed. Jeremy M. Hutton and Aaron Rubin; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2015, pp. 253–292.
• Jeremy M. Hutton, Preston L. Atwood, Maura K. Heyn, Nathaniel E. Greene, and Catherine E. Bonesho, “Two Palmyrene Inscriptions in the Collection of the Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield, MA: PAT 0960 and 1773,” Maarav 20 (2013 [appeared 2016]): 135–161, 257–259.