Professor Katherine Southwood

I was educated at comprehensive schools in North West London, where I grew up. After leaving school I got a job doing data entry but did evening classes at Birkbeck, London, in Hebrew. I fell in love with the language and applied to do an undergraduate degree in Theology in Durham. After this I did a Masters in Classical Hebrew, then a DPhil in Oxford. I was Kennicott Fellow in Oxford and then secured a permanent post in St Mary’s University College, Twickenham. I started my current post in Oxford in 2013. I am a keen open water swimmer and enjoy cold water swimming throughout the year.

Teaching

Teaching is at the heart of my academic work, and it is one of the most rewarding aspects of the job. In Oxford my teaching and examining privileges span both graduate and undergraduate students alike. As a full Professor of Hebrew Bible / Old Testament, I am always happy to discuss graduate supervision with anybody whose interests in Hebrew Bible align with my own specialisms.

My research focuses on primary evidence, such Hebrew Bible material and evidence out of the Hebrew Bible including manuscripts, inscriptions, artefacts, papyri, and ostraca, dated to the Neo-Babylonian and Persian periods. Interdisciplinarity and methodological rigor are key to my approach.

I have published many books and articles, but the single-authored books which are particularly worthy of attention include:

• The Civic Value of the Humanities: A Case for Compassion. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, forthcoming. Contracted for submission in March 2025
• Job’s Body and the Dramatized Comedy of Moralising. RSBW. London: Routledge, 2021
• Marriage by Capture in the Book of Judges: An Anthropological Approach. SOTSMS. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017
• Ethnicity and the Mixed Marriage Crisis in Ezra 9–10: An Anthropological Approach. OTM. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.

For a fuller picture do have a look at my CV (here) and my departmental webpage.