Evelyne Koubková is a PhD candidate in Assyriology and a Graduate Teaching Fellow at the Poorvu Center. She studied Religious Studies at the Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic, and was awarded the Baden-Wuerttemberg scholarship to study Assyriology at the University of Heidelberg, Germany. Her academic work focuses on religion in ancient Mesopotamia of the first millennium BCE, with a specific focus on ritual practice and the intersection of religion and medicine. She is currently working on her dissertation about the profession of the so-called exorcist, an elite religious professional whose ritual practice is documented through a large number of ritual texts and letters. Evelyne draws inspiration for her work on ancient Mesopotamia from anthropological approaches (anthropology of religion, medical anthropology), ritual studies, and phenomenology of sensory experience.

Evelyne’s approach to teaching is grounded in her interdisciplinary experience, a passion for her work and for a good conversation. The fascinating, and largely unexplored, world of ancient Mesopotamia deserves attention for its relevance to many interdisciplinary discussions - and the way we teach about this world is a great place to start. Evelyne also enjoys creating spaces for peer-to-peer conversation and mutual learning through organizing eg. study groups (Theory Reading Group for Assyriology), conferences (Graduate Student Symposium in Ancient Near Eastern Studies), and communities (Women in Ancient Studies Forum) as well as, now, facilitating teaching workshops for other graduate students at the Poorvu Center.