Charlotte Hempel Smith Lecture

On 26 February 2025 Professor Charlotte Hempel gave the Spring 2025 Smith Lecture (event details)

Charlotte Hempel is Professor of Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Judaism at the University of Birmingham. Her main research interests are the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Hebrew Bible. In 2013-2014 she worked on a project funded by a British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship entitled: ‘The Development of Complex Literary Traditions in the Second Temple Period' which resulted in the project monograph, ‘The Community Rules from Qumran: A Commentary'. Until 2016 Prof. Hempel was the host scientist-in charge for the EU funded Marie Curie Fellowship of Dr. Angela Harkins and co-investigator with Isabel Wollaston on a three year educational project ‘Jewish Heritage and Culture: Birmingham Perspectives'. More recently she was awarded an Arts and Humanities Council (AHRC) Leadership Fellowship to work on a project entitled ‘Ezra's Legacy and the Dead Sea Scrolls: Law and Narratives of Exclusion' and was the founding Director of the Second Temple Early Career Academy, a Virtual Common Room of global reach.

Following the lecture, women scholars had the opportunity to meet Prof. Hempel in an adjacent venue for conversation not only about her lecture but around ways of encouraging and advancing women's careers in the academy.