Featured Voice: Ki-Eun Jang

I am an Assistant Professor of Hebrew Bible at Fordham University. Previously, I also taught at Union Theological Seminary and NYU, where I earned my doctorate. My research interrogates the literary-historiographical trajectories the Hebrew Bible has undergone and the effects it has produced, with critical attention to the categories and theoretical paradigms through which the modern humanities have organized and understood the ancient past and its peoples—and to the new hermeneutic possibilities such inquiry opens. 

• What project, publication, or question is most animating your work right now?

In my forthcoming book, Contesting Labeled Identities, I examine the sociological mechanisms by which named identity labels are adopted, abandoned, and repurposed in the literary milieu of ancient West Asia that yielded the Hebrew Bible. By tracing both the ancient logic of identification and its modern history of ideas, I uncover how modern paradigms, particularly those informed by Fredrik Barth’s “ethnic groups and boundaries,” have both shaped and constrained biblical interpretation. Building on this work, I am developing a project that rethinks biblical Canaanites and the interpretive epistemologies of otherness generated by their discourses. More recently, I have become drawn to questions about how translated Bibles in contemporary Korea function as acts of interpretation in their own right. 

• What has your involvement in the CBA meant for your scholarship, teaching, or professional community?

The CBA has been invaluable to my scholarly formation. Receiving the Emerging Scholars Fellowship provided an early opportunity to present my research at the Annual Meeting. Beyond the strong sense of community that characterizes the CBA meetings, I value the diverse formats offered for scholarly exchange, such as the continuing seminars that facilitate multi-year engagement with specific papers or themes. I am equally excited by the CBA's recent expansion into year-round programming, which provides more avenues to help advance biblical scholarship. 

• What is one passion, interest, or practice outside your academic work that you would like others to know about?

Documenting the world through photography.