Pilar Bertuzzi Rivett

The Exorcist and the Rabbi: Hebrew Divine Names in Christian Prayer, 750-850

I am interested in the liminal space between religious prayer and magic, which I investigate by applying philological and historical methods to primary sources.

My doctoral research focuses on the use of Hebrew divine names in Latin Christian liturgical and para-liturgical contexts between late antiquity and the early Middle Ages. Inspired by Tambiah’s theories of ritual, Austinian concepts of performative language and Rappaport’s anthropology of religion theory, I apply an inter-disciplinary approach which borrows comparative methods from history, anthropology and archaeology in order to contextualise dynamics of transmission through space and time. My analysis challenges traditional models of language and hypothesises a sharing of space across cultures, in an area of Jewish-Christian relations that is often neglected owing both to the dearth of primary sources and to the perceived language barriers.

Key interests include the development of Christian baptismal and exorcistic practices during periods of social change as well as dynamics of transmission between Jewish and Christian Kabbalah in the Latin West.

In 2022, I was selected to participate in Oxford’s joint workshop with the Center of the Study of Conversion and Inter-Religious Encounters of Ben Gurion University of the Negev. In 2023, I received a grant from the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies to participate in the Oxford Hebrew Studies Manuscript Workshop. In 2024, I moderated a panel at an international interdisciplinary workshop at All Souls College (Oxford) titled ‘Soul and Embodiment in the Late Antique World and the Middle Ages (c. 200-1300)’ (April 2024).

I was awarded Associate Fellowship of Advance HE, the UK Professional Standards Framework for teaching and supporting learning in higher education which the University of Oxford is affiliated with. Fellowship is awarded after a period of training and the submission of a teaching portfolio.

I have taught the following undergraduate papers at Oxford in one-to-one tutorials and seminars:

• Early Gothic France, c. 1100-1150
• The Carolingian Renaissance

I also taught and assessed an ad-hoc module on Anglo Saxon archaeology 600-1000 for which I developed a curriculum and summative assessment.

I am an editor of Carminabase, a database of Latin and vernacular medical and apotropaic charms copied between the tenth and the fifteenth centuries, headed by Béatrice Delaurenti at EHSS (École des Hautes Études Sciences Sociales).

Presentations:

• Mysticism and Theology Network Conference in 2024
• International Congress on the Study of the Middle Ages (Leeds), 2022
• International Congress on Medieval Studies (West Michigan), 2022.

Supervisor: Professor Matthew Kempshall and Professor Judith Olszowy-Schlanger