Laura Lieber

Laura Lieber's (Ph.D. 2003, University of Chicago) primary area of research is in the area of synagogue poetry ("piyyut") from Late Antiquity and the Byzantine period. She examines these works from a variety of perspectives, including literary, performative, and comparative (particularly with early Christian hymnography in Syriac and Greek), and also as a genre of early Jewish biblical interpretation. In recent years, She has begun to integrate the study of material culture into her analysis of these literary works, as part of taking a more fully "contextual" approach to literary analysis. Her most recent work approaches late ancient hymnography through the lens of theater studies and performance. Her research interests include: Byzantine liturgical poetry; history of biblical interpretation; history of Jewish liturgy; Jewish culture in late antiquity; material culture; medieval Judaism; rabbinic literature.
Specializations

• Poetics
• Jewish Studies
• Medieval and Early Modern

Curriculum Vitae