Michael E. Pregill
Assistant Professor
Dept. of Religious Studies
Elon University
214 Spence Pavilion
mpregill@elon.edu
336-278-5742
- Courses taught
- Fields of specialization
- Research interests and scholarly activities
- Recent conference presentations
- Select publications
Early and Classical Islam; Quran and Tafsir; Late Antiquity; Second Temple and Rabbinic Judaism; reception and interpretation of the Hebrew Bible
Research interests and scholarly activities
I am currently Distinguished Emerging Scholar in the Department of Religious Studies at Elon University in North Carolina. My primary area of expertise is early Islam, with a specific focus on the Quran and its interpretive tradition (tafsir). Much of my research concerns the reception and interpretation of biblical, Jewish, and Christian themes and motifs in tafsir and other branches of classical Islamic literature, as well as the perception and representation of Jews and Christians in Islamic culture.
More broadly, I am interested in the complex relationships between various scriptural communities in Late Antiquity, especially as they are manifested in discourses such as polemical disputation and scriptural exegesis. I have recently become interested in literary sources of a later period such as medieval Shi’i tafsir and Judeo-Arabic compositions of the Cairo Geniza that similarly reflect the negotiation of boundaries between Muslim, Jewish, and Christian communities in the Near East and Mediterranean. In the summer of 2012 I will be doing extensive manuscript research in this area thanks to an NEH Summer Stipend.
I am on the steering committee for the Quran and Bible section of the North American conference of the Society of Biblical Literature. I also chair the new Quran and Islamic Tradition in Comparative Perspective unit of the international conference of the SBL. I have recently joined the advisory board of the new Cambridge Dictionary of Ancient Mediterranean Religions. I am currently working on my first monograph, The Living Calf of Sinai: Polemic, Idolatry, and “Influence” in the Formation of the Judeo-Islamic Tradition..
I have contributed several articles to the Encyclopedia of the Bible and its Reception (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2009 to present), including “Aniconism, III. Islam”; “Canon, III. Islam”; “Children of Israel (Sūra 17)”; “Demons, Demonology, VII. Islam”; and “Devil, III. Islam” (in collaboration with Zohar Hadromi-Allouche).
Recent conference presentations“Remaking the Legacy of Israel: Tafsir and Midrash as Imperial Literatures”
The Origins of Islam: Narratives of History and the Historiography of Narratives
Conference at Dartmouth College, 7-8 August 2011
“The Miracle of the Samaritan: al-Tabari’s Reception and Manipulation of Tradition in his Tafsir”
SBL International Meeting, King’s College, London, 5 July 2011
“The Stars are Alive: Astral Presences and Idolatry from Hellenistic Magic to Islamic Philosophy”
Colloquium in Honor of Alan Franklin Segal
Barnard College, Columbia University, New York, NY, 12 December 2010
“Hands Off! The Syriac Didascalia, the Israelite Priesthood, and the Quran”
Joint Session of the Quran and Biblical Literature and Syriac Languages and Literature Sections
SBL Annual Meeting, Atlanta, GA, 21 November 2010
“Storytellers versus Lexicographers: Tafsir’s Hostile (?) Takeover of Scriptural Commentary in the 10th Century”
The Meaning of the Word: Lexicology and Tafsir
Pre-Conference Workshop, AAR Annual Meeting, Atlanta, GA, 29 October 2010
"The Sound of Fitna: The Levitical Election, Atonement, and Secession in Early and Classical Islamic Exegesis”
Forthcoming in Comparative Islamic Studies, 2012
“Methodologies for the Dating of Exegetical Works and Traditions: Can the Lost Tafsir of al-Kalbi be Recovered from Tafsir Ibn
Abbas (a.k.a. Al-Wadih)?”
Forthcoming in Aims and Methods of Quranic Exegesis (8th-15th Centuries), ed. Karen Bauer
Oxford: Oxford University Press in Association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2011
“Ahab, Bar Kokhba, Muhammad, and the Lying Spirit: Prophetic Discourse before and after the Rise of Islam”
In Revelation, Literature and Society in Antiquity, ed. Philippa Townsend and Moulie Vidas
Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011
“Isra’iliyyat, Myth, and Pseudepigraphy: Wahb b. Munabbih and the Early Islamic Versions of the Fall of Adam and Eve”
Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 34 (2008): 215-284
“The Hebrew Bible and the Quran: The Problem of the Jewish ‘Influence’ on Islam”
Religion Compass 1:6 (2007): 643-659