Laura Suzanne Lieber
Professor of Religious Studies
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.
Education
- Ph.D., University of Chicago 2003
- M.A., Hebrew Union College 1998
- B.A., University of Arkansas at Fayetteville 1994
Lieber, L. S. Songs from the Western Shore: Aramaic Poetry from Late Antiquity. Cambridge: Brill, 2016.
Lieber, L. S. The Vocabulary of Desire: The Song of Songs in the Early Synagogue. Leiden: Brill, 2014.
Lieber, L. S. Yannai on Genesis: An Invitation to Piyyut. Hebrew Union College Press, 2010.
Green, D. A., and L. S. Lieber. Scriptural exegesis: The shapes of culture and the religious imagination essays in honour of Michael Fishbane, 2009. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199206575.001.0001. Full Text
Lieber, L. S. Study Guide to the JPS Bible Commentary: Haftarot. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2002.
Lieber, L. S. The Poetry of Communal Lament in Late Ancient Judaism and Eastern Christianity, n.d.
Lieber, L. S. Staging the Sacred: Liturgical Poetry through the Lens of Theater, n.d.
Lieber, L. S. “Entering the High Holy Days.” In Mishkan Ha-Nefesh, xvii–xix. New York: Central Conference of American Rabbis, 2015.
Lieber, L. S. “Piyyut (Jewish Liturgical and Secular Poetry).” In The Encyclopedia of Ancient History. Oxford: Blackwell, 2015.
Lieber, Laura S. “The Piyyutim le-Hatan of Qallir and Amittai - Jewish Marriage Customs in Early Byzantium.” edited by S. Fine and A. Koller, 73:275–99. WALTER DE GRUYTER GMBH, 2014.
Lieber, L. S. “The Poetry of Creation: Zevadiah and Amittai’s Yotzerot le-Hatan (Groom’s Yotzers).” In Recent Developments in Midrash, edited by David Nelson and Rikva Ulmer. Gorgias Press, 2013.
Lieber, L. S. “Kedushah.” In Cambridge Dictionary of Ancient Mediterranean Religions, edited by Lisbeth Fried, Nicola Denzy Lewis, and Michael Satlow. Cambridge UP, 2013.
Lieber, L. S. “Jewish Women: Texts and Contexts.” In A Companion to Women in the Ancient World, 329–42, 2012. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444355024.ch24. Full Text
Lieber, L. S. “Piyyut.” In Oxford Bibliographies Online. Oxford UP, 2012.
Lieber, L. S. “Piyyut (Jewish Liturgical and Secular Poetry).” In The Encyclopedia of Ancient History. Blackwell / Oxford UP, 2012.
Lieber, L. S. ““Dew of Rest: The World of Nature in Qallir’s Gevurot shel Tal".” In Menachem Schmelzer Festschrift, edited by Debra Blank, 167–83. Brill, 2011.
Lieber, L. S. “Jewish Women.” In The Blackwell Companion to Women in the Ancient World, edited by Sheila Dillon and Sharon James, 329–42. Blackwell / Oxford UP, 2011.
Pages
Lieber, L. S. “With One Voice: Elements of Acclamation in Early Jewish Liturgical Poetry.” Harvard Theological Review 111, no. 3 (July 1, 2018): 401–24. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0017816018000172. Full Text
Lieber, L. S. “Jewish Aramaic poetry from late antiquity: Translations and commentaries.” Etudes Sur Le Judaisme Medieval 75 (January 1, 2018): 1–245. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004365896_002. Full Text
Lieber, L. S. “Daru in the winehouse: The intersection of status and dance in the Jewish east.” Journal of Religion 98, no. 1 (January 1, 2018): 90–113. https://doi.org/10.1086/694658. Full Text
Lieber, L. S. “On the road with the mater Dolorosa: An exploration of mother-son discourse performance.” Journal of Early Christian Studies 24, no. 2 (June 1, 2016): 265–91. https://doi.org/10.1353/earl.2016.0021. Full Text
Lieber, L. S. “Stages of Grief: Enacting Lamentation in Late Ancient Hymnography.” Ajs Review 40, no. 1 (April 1, 2016): 101–24. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0364009416000064. Full Text
Lieber, L. S. “Theater of the Holy: Performative Elements of Late Ancient Hymnography.” Harvard Theological Review 108, no. 3 (January 1, 2015): 327–55. https://doi.org/10.1017/S001781601500022X. Full Text
Lieber, L. S. “From the Margins: A Response to ‘Schoeps on Schoeps’.” Nexus: Essays in German Jewish Studies 2 (2015): 33–36.
Lieber, L. S. “Setting the stage: The theatricality of Jewish Aramaic poetry from late antiquity.” Jewish Quarterly Review 104, no. 4 (September 1, 2014): 537–72. https://doi.org/10.1353/jqr.2014.0039. Full Text
Lieber, L. “Telling a Liturgical Tale: Storytelling in Early Jewish Liturgical Poetry.” Zeitschrift Fur Religions Und Geistesgeschichte 66, no. 3–4 (January 1, 2014): 209–32. https://doi.org/10.1163/15700739-90000128. Full Text
Lieber, L. S. “The Plot within the Piyyut: Retelling the Story of Balak on the Liturgical Stage.” The Journal for Textual Reasoning 8 (2014).