02 September 2026
Dr Doren Snoek (Associate Lecturer, School of Divinity)
Tell us about your research and how it connects to memory/identity studies?
My doctoral research was on revisionary history in the Hebrew Bible; the question that I asked is “how might the production of a new history have effects on social memory?” I connected theory from memory studies with ancient scribalism, suggesting that scribes in antiquity are important mediators of memory. The dissertation argued that one biblical history, Chronicles, was innovative and had the potential to reconfigure shared understanding of ancient Israel’s and Judah’s history. The research thus contributes to the theory and method in the study of memory and identity and to our understanding of biblical literature and the history of religions.
What are you working on now?
My next project is related to scribalism, like the first one, with a new focus on animal studies and representation of the natural world. I am asking whether and how practices of hunting, fishing, and fowling generated meaning in the Iron period Levant. Memory studies remains an important influence. Memory studies has helped me be uniquely attuned to multimedia and how events and practices are encoded in different media. This is particularly important because scribes and artisans in antiquity do not provide extensive descriptions of animal exploitation. Where the first study was textual, this new one is interested in iconography and ritual, which memory studies tells us are important media. I am also interested in the question of how, after practices cease, they are represented or remembered. Early Jewish literature offers some fascinating examples of this.