Laura Suzanne Lieber

Professor of Religious Studies, Divinity, German Studies, and Classical Studies, Smart Family Director, Duke Center for Jewish Studies, Religious Studies

Fellowship Year(s)

  • 2021-2022

My primary area of research is in the area of synagogue poetry ("piyyut") from Late Antiquity and the Byzantine period. I examine 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, I have begun to integrate the study of material culture into my analysis of these literary works, as part of taking a more fully "contextual" approach to literary analysis. My most recent work approaches late ancient hymnography through the lens of theater studies and performance.

Posts by Laura Lieber
Laura Suzanne Lieber
Laura Suzanne Lieber