our team
Dr. Justin Strong (Principal Investigator)
Justin David Strong (PhD Notre Dame, 2019) made the mid-pandemic odyssey to Mainz in 2020 to establish this DFG project. Strong is the author of The Fables of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke: A New Foundation for the Study of Parables (Brill, 2021), which was the recipient of the Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award in 2022.
He has published extensively in peer-reviewed venues such as JSJ, NTS, and JECS on the ancient fable and many other subjects.
Strong’s role as PI in the project includes research (composing a monograph and several articles, alongside editing conference volumes), organizing conferences, co-advising the research team, and the general administration of the project.
Email: [email protected]
Prof. Dr. Ruben Zimmermann
(Principal Investigator)
Ruben Zimmermann has been working with early Christian parables for about 20 years. He is the editor of the “Kompendium der Gleichnisse Jesu” (2007, 2nd ed. 2015) and the volume “Hermeneutik der Gleichnisse Jesu” (2008, 2nd ed. 2011). He is the author of the monographs of “Puzzling the Parables of Jesus” (2015) and “Parabeln in der Bibel. Die Sinnwelten der Gleichnisse Jesu entdecken” (2023), as well as numerous articles on the subject.
He has established a polyvalent approach to the parables that integrates historical (especially memory approach), literary (especially narratological), and reception-aesthetic aspects (e.g., ecohermeneutical reading of the parables). More recently, he has been concerned with the intersections between fable and parable literature, esp. the Greek fabulist Babrius (1st century C. E.).
Zimmermann has supervised several dissertations on parables and the habilitation of Dieter Roth (Parables in Q).
Email: [email protected]
Dr. Albertina Oegema (Post-doctoral Researcher)
Dr. Albertina Oegema is postdoctoral researcher at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz. She obtained her BA in Theology at the University of Groningen in 2010 and her RMA in Religion and Culture at the same university in 2013, both with cum laude-distinction. In 2021, she completed her PhD at Utrecht University with cum laude-distinction (awarded to the top 3–5% of dissertations in the Netherlands) with a thesis on fathers and sons in early rabbinic parables.
In subsequent years, she held research and teaching positions at the Protestant Theological University in Amsterdam/Groningen and the Radboud University in Nijmegen.
Within the project “The Ancient Fable Tradition and Early Christian Literature,” Albertina Oegema examines the intersections between the fables of Babrius and early Christian and rabbinic sources, in particular parables.
Email: [email protected]
Mitja Rohrbach
(Student Assistant)
Mitja Rohrbach is a student at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz and the student assistant of the project.
For this, he is responsible for many administrative aspects, including logistics of conference, office management tasks, and running the website.
Email: [email protected]
Charlotte Haußmann (PhD-Student)
Charlotte Haußmann is a PhD-Student under the supervision of Prof. Zimmermann on the “Narrative Ethics of the Fables of Babrius.” She examines selected mythiambs of Babrius (such as oikos fables; agricultural fables; hunting fables, etc.), elaborating ethical norms concerning power play, friendship, status maintenance, and the like. Special attention is also paid to the literary forms through which moral signification is generated. C. Haußmann holds a fellowship by the “Stiftung der Deutschen Wirtschaft”.
Email: [email protected]
