Foto: Dr. Emma Polyakov/STI

Dr. Emma Polyakov: Statement on the 2022 Krister Stendahl Research Fellowship

Nyhet Publicerad

It is with great gratitude that I reflect on my experience as the first Krister Stendahl Research Fellow at the Swedish Theological Institute. At the invitation of Rev. Dr. Maria Leppäkari, director of the Swedish Theological Institute from 2015-2022, I was honored to serve as the inaugural Krister Stendahl Research Fellow, and to be in residence in Jerusalem in February, March, and April of 2022. 

My relationship with the Swedish Theological Institute began in 2015, when I was conducting research on Christian-Jewish relations in Jerusalem. At the time, I was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre for Theology and Religious Studies at Lund University, and the Swedish Theological Institute served as a home base in Jerusalem during that time. During the two years of my postdoctoral research, from 2015-2017, I often traveled to Jerusalem for research, and each time I was welcomed warmly to the STI. In 2018 I began a tenure-track position at Merrimack College in the United States, and in my new position, I was fortunate enough to return to Jerusalem frequently to continue my independent research and writing. 

When I arrived in Jerusalem in February of 2022, I hosted the first in-person academic conference at the STI in two years, entitled “Jerusalem in Memory and Eschatology: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Visions of the Past and Future of Jerusalem.” The conference was held in the form of an academic round-table, in a hybrid in-person and remote format.

Following this inaugural conference, I dedicated the remainder of my time in Jerusalem to independent research and writing, working on a book manuscript entitled The Idea of the Holy Land: Myth, Memory, and Imagination, detailed below.

Foto: Swedish Theological Institute