Eric Harvey holds a PhD from Brandeis University in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies, with a specialization in Bible and the Ancient Near East. He studies the history, literature, and religions of ancient Israel, Syria, Iraq, and the surrounding areas.
His doctoral dissertation, “Sing to the Lord a New(-ish) Song: The Psalms of the Egyptian hallel across Two Thousand Years,” traces the development and transformation of several biblical Psalms from their hazy origins to the invention of the printing press, changing from manuscript to manuscript in coevolution with a variety of historical, religious, and socio-cultural contexts. The expansion of this dissertation into a (forthcoming) book was supported by a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University’s Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis, where he also administered a digital humanities fellowship program and supported digital accessibility initiatives. He is currently a fellow at the American Council of Learned Societies, which is supporting a book-length research project into the lived and literary aspects of blindness in the ancient Middle East.
Eric is married to the beautiful and talented Kristin Myers Harvey, who inspired this blog. He is also the father of Jane and Amelia,.
Eric has a degenerative retinal condition known as retinitis pigmentosa. He has been legally blind since 2014 and is very slowly losing what remains of his eyesight. This site began as a record of his experience going blind, and you can start tracing that journey with the following posts:
My Vision in Experiential Terms
Eric is intent on finding creative new ways to engage in scholarship, family, and the world as a blind person. He is writing this blog to share the process and hopefully learn from others who might wander by.