Mason moves to Groningen

CONGRATULATIONS TO STEVE MASON:

University of Groningen appoints Steve Mason to new Chair in Ancient Mediterranean Religions and Cultures

Professor Steve Mason will be appointed Distinguished Professor of Ancient Mediterranean Religions and Cultures at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies of the University of Groningen from August 1, 2015. Mason is a leading scholar in the history and literature of the eastern Mediterranean under Roman rule, especially Roman Judaea, the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, and Christian-Jewish-Roman relations.

Initiators of the Chair are the Dean of the Faculty, Prof. Kocku von Stuckrad, and Prof. Mladen Popović, Chair of the Department of Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Origins and Director of the Qumran Institute, which Mason will join. The new Chair will undertake and facilitate education and research in currents of ancient Mediterranean religion and culture that remain important for modern European and Middle Eastern identities. The establishment of the Chair supports the university’s strategic investment in the humanities, given their importance alongside science for modern life. It reflects the view of both the RUG and Mason that a critical understanding of our shared past, recent and ancient, throws light on our modern identities, including the sources and potential resolution of conflict.

Steve Mason studied Judaism and Early Christianity at McMaster University (Hamilton, Canada). After his Ph.D. (University of St. Michael's College, 1986, by way of the universities of Jerusalem and Tübingen) he worked at The Pennsylvania State University, as Head of Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies, and at Toronto’s York University, most recently as Canada Research Chair in Greco-Roman Cultural Interaction. Since 2011 he has held the Kirby Laing Chair in New Testament at the University of Aberdeen. Mason was the first Dirk Smilde Fellow at the Qumran Institute in Groningen, from January through May 2014. His career has been one of building bridges around the ancient Mediterranean: between disciplines and between ancient and modern times.

Plans are taking shape for an international Master’s programme for an international Master’s programme that Steve Mason will develop together with Mladen Popović. Mason will also continue editing the series Flavius Josephus: Translation and Commentary (Brill), the first detailed commentary to all the works of Josephus. His history of the Jewish-Roman War (66–74 CE) will appear with Cambridge University Press in the coming months.

For more information, see http://www.rug.nl/ggw/news/archive/2015/university-of-groningen-appoints-steve-mason-to-new-chair-in-ancient-mediterranean-religions-and-cultures.

Sent in by Mladen Popovic. I am delighted for Steve and for Groningen, although he will be missed in Scotland.