March 29, 2016

Discovering Legal Pluralism

ACLS Fellowship for Robert Kugler’s project, “Discovering Legal Pluralism: Toward a New Understanding of the Jews of Hellenistic Egypt.

The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) has awarded Robert Kugler, Paul S. Wright Professor and Director of Strategic Initiatives, a grant for his project, “Discovering Legal Pluralism: Toward a New Understanding of the Jews of Hellenistic Egypt.” The ACLS fellowship program is intended to help faculty members in the humanities and humanistic social sciences devote six to twelve continuous months to full-time research and writing, which results in a major piece of scholarly work. It is a distinct honor to be named an ACLS Fellow, even more so because the competition is extremely rigorous: ACLS received nearly 1,100 applications for just 69 awards this year; a funding rate of only approximately 6.3%. The ACLS announcement is available here.

Dr. Kugler will use this fellowship during his upcoming 2016-17 sabbatical to author a monograph addressing both papyrologists and scholars of Jewish Studies. Specifically, he will complete the study and analysis of a collection of second century BCE legal complaints from a Nile harbor town, which provide much information about the nature of the Jews living under Greek rule in Egypt. This book, and the resultant increased appreciation of the Herakleopolis papyri, has the potential to transform understanding of the Jews of Hellenistic Egypt. 

March 2016