Kelsie Ehalt
Kelsie is interested broadly in the construction of gender in the cuneiform cultures of ancient Mesopotamia. Topics of particular interest include human-animal interactions, the function of monsters in literature, and reception of the ancient world in modern media. For this research, Kelsie interacts with Assyriological literature in addition to queer theory, critical theory, and post-colonial theory.
Kelsie completed an MA at Brandeis in a joint program between the departments of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. For this program, Kelsie wrote a thesis on the enigmatic figures of assinnu in Akkadian literature, who perform a gender outside of expected binary constructions, and additionally worked to untangle gender assumptions built into modern scholarly literature published on the assinnu.
Kelsie recently presented at the 5th Workshop on Gender and Methodology in the Ancient Near East in Helsinki. The project involved an exploration of the association of dogs with hegemonic and complicit masculinities in textual and artistic depictions of the Neo-Assyrian royal lion hunt and the baby-stealing demon Lamaštu.
Although focusing on Akkadian and Sumerian texts, Kelsie is also interested in the archaeology of the Ancient Near East, completing two seasons of fieldwork at Tel Kabri and one at Megiddo in Israel.
Outside of academic pursuits, Kelsie spends a lot of time listening to music, watching weird movies, and going on adventures with very high-energy dog, Dusty.
Kelsie completed an MA at Brandeis in a joint program between the departments of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. For this program, Kelsie wrote a thesis on the enigmatic figures of assinnu in Akkadian literature, who perform a gender outside of expected binary constructions, and additionally worked to untangle gender assumptions built into modern scholarly literature published on the assinnu.
Kelsie recently presented at the 5th Workshop on Gender and Methodology in the Ancient Near East in Helsinki. The project involved an exploration of the association of dogs with hegemonic and complicit masculinities in textual and artistic depictions of the Neo-Assyrian royal lion hunt and the baby-stealing demon Lamaštu.
Although focusing on Akkadian and Sumerian texts, Kelsie is also interested in the archaeology of the Ancient Near East, completing two seasons of fieldwork at Tel Kabri and one at Megiddo in Israel.
Outside of academic pursuits, Kelsie spends a lot of time listening to music, watching weird movies, and going on adventures with very high-energy dog, Dusty.
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MA Thesis by Kelsie Ehalt
The incorporation of modern gender theory will aid with deconstructing long-held interpretive traditions within Assyriological scholarship and make space for a new analysis of assinnu as performing a non-normative or non-binary gender. This new, minimal interpretation of assinnu is less dependent on rigid categorization and instead allows room for ambiguity in the ancient texts and modern descriptions of assinnu.
Papers by Kelsie Ehalt
selves dogs, and both the lion and dogs are portrayed in the reliefs on the palace walls. In the Lamaštu incantations, dogs act as mediators against Lamaštu’s feminine monstrosity.