Emerging Scholars: Senses and Secrecy in the Dead Sea Scrolls
February 24 @ 5:30 pm - 6:30 pm
Emerging Scholars Talk
Each year, the Center hosts online talks given by current grad students and recent alumni affiliated with the Center to showcase their work.
Monday, February 24, 2025, 5:30pm, Zoom.
Registration is required.
Remote talk with Seonghyun Choi, graduate student in the department of religious studies and this year’s Dissertation Completion Fellow.
Enlightening the Heart: Senses and Secrecy in the Dead Sea Scrolls
How does secrecy shape a community’s identity? What makes hidden knowledge so powerful? This talk examines how the Qumran community of the Second Temple period claimed access to secret knowledge—truths hidden from outsiders and revealed only to those chosen by the deity—which reinforced their sense of election. It also explores how secrecy interacted with sensory perception in the Dead Sea Scrolls, suggesting that community members believed they could “experience” secrecy by sensing hidden truths.
Seonghyun Choi is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Religious Studies at UNC Chapel Hill, specializing in the Hebrew Bible, Dead Sea Scrolls, Disability Studies, and Sensory Studies. His research examines how ancient communities understood secrecy and sensory experience, with a particular focus on the Qumran community of the Second Temple period.
