J. Cale Johnson studied Assyriology, Comparative Semitics and Linguistics at UCLA, receiving his PhD in Assyriology in 2004, with a dissertation on applicative constructions in Sumerian (a substantially revised version appeared in 2010 as Unaccusativity and the Double Object Construction in Sumerian (LIT). In 2008 he came to Berlin, focusing initially on Early Dynastic scholastic literature, but he was increasingly drawn into Middle Assyrian administrative history and calendrics and, later on, Babylonian medicine. He is Deputy Head of the BabMed Project (2013-2018), and in his function as Lead Editor also responsible for the BabMed Corpora Online Project. Since September 2018 Cale Johnson is a faculty member of the School of History and Cultures at the University of Birmingham. He is currently finishing up two monographs: a comprehensive edition of Mesopotamian treatments for gastrointestinal disease (Gastrointestinal Disease and its Treatment in Ancient Mesopotamia, under contract with De Gruyter) and an edition of the Middle Assyrian administrative archive M6.

Monographs

2. (with Markham J. Geller) The Class Reunion: A Critical Edition and Annotated Translation of the Sumerian Literary Dialogue ‘Two Scribes’ (Cuneiform Monographs [Brill], 2015)

1. Unaccusativity and the Double Object Construction in Sumerian (Vienna: LIT, 2010)

Papers

24. Introduction: Infrastructural compendia and the licensing of empiricism in Mesopotamian technical literature (to appear in J. Cale Johnson, ed., In the Wake of the Compendia: Infrastructural Contexts and the Licensing of Empiricism [De Gruyter])

23. Depersonalized case histories in the Babylonian therapeutic compendia (to appear in J. Cale Johnson, ed., In the Wake of the Compendia: Infrastructural Contexts and the Licensing of Empiricism [De Gruyter])

22. Metapragmatic awareness and the stratification of Classical Sumerian literature (to appear in G. Selz et al, eds., Bro/ken Narratives: Tagung der Philologisch-Kulturwissenschaftlichen Fakultät der Universität Wien)

21. Meat distribution in Late Uruk diacritical feasts: Second-order bookkeeping techniques and their institutional context in third millennium BCE Mesopotamia (to appear in the Proceedings of the Colloquium Commemorating Peter Damerow)

20. The invention of esoteric knowledge in Early Dynastic Mesopotamia (to appear in Florentina Badalanova Geller, ed., Knowledge to Die For: Transmission of Prohibited and Esoteric Knowledge Through Space and Time [De Gruyter])

19. Towards a reconstruction of SUALU IV: Can we localize K 2386+ in the therapeutic corpus? Le Journal des Médecines Cunéiformes [JMC] 24: 11–38.

18. Late Uruk bicameral orthographies and their Early Dynastic Rezeptionsgeschichte (to appear in R. Dittmann and G. Selz, eds., Zur Erforschung des Frühdynastikums: Altertumskunde des Vorderen Orients; currently available as SFB 980 (Episteme in Bewegung) Working Paper no. 2: http://www.sfb-episteme.de/Listen_Read_Watch/Working-Papers/index.html).

17. The origins of scholastic commentary in Mesopotamia: Second-order schemata in the Early Dynastic exegetical imagination. In Shai Gordin, ed., Visualizing Knowledge and Creating Meaning in Ancient Writing Systems (Berliner Beiträge zum Vorderen Orient [BBVO] 23, Gladbeck: PeWe-Verlag, 2014), 15–59.

16. Sumerian adjectival passives using the *im- prefix: The Old Babylonian evidence and some possible third millennium precursors. In Steven Garfinkle and Manuel Molina, eds., From the 21st Century BC to the 21st Century AD: The Present and Future of Neo-Sumerian Studies, 19–48. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns.

15. (with Eva Cancik-Kirschbaum) Middle Assyrian calendrics. State Archives of Assyria Bulletin [SAAB] 19: 87–152.

14. The cost of cosmogony: Ethical reflections on resource extraction, monumental architecture and urbanism in the Sumerian literary tradition. In Ulrike Steinert and Natalie May, eds., The Fabric of Cities: Aspects of Urbanism, Urban Topography and Society in Mesopotamia, Greece and Rome (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 43–75.

13. Contractual formalism and Zukunftsbewältigung in Middle Assyrian agricultural accounting. In L. Feliu, J. Llop, A. Millet Albà and J. Sanmartín, eds., Time and History in the Ancient Near East: Proceedings of the 56th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale at Barcelona (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2013), 525–548.

12. (with Adam Johnson) Contingency and innovation in native transcriptions of encrypted cuneiform (UD.GAL.NUN). In Joshua Englehardt, ed., Agency in Ancient Writing (Boulder: University of Colorado Press, 2013), 165–182.

11. Indexical iconicity in Sumerian belles lettres. Language and Communication 33 (2012): 26–49.

10. The metaphysics of mantic/prophetic authentication devices in Old Babylonian Mari. In G. Barjamovic, J. L. Dahl, et al., eds., Akkade is King: a collection of papers by friends and colleagues presented to Aage Westenholz on the occasion of his 70th birthday (PIHANS 118; Leiden: NINO, 2011), 151–161.

 9. Sound symbolism in The Disputation between Bird and Fish 102–109. Altorientalische Forschungen [AoF] 37 (2011): 230–241.

8. (with Jochen Brüning, Hagan Brunke, and Eva Cancik-Kirschbaum) The epistemological dynamics of early writing: Spatiality and perception. eTopoi: Journal for Ancient Studies, Special Volume 1 (2011): 1–10

7. (with Ronald Veenker) The appellate process in a legal record (di til-la) from Ur III Umma Altorientalische Forschungen [AoF] 36 (2009): 349–364.

6. Decomposing the DP in Sumerian: Definiteness, specificity and the BNBV diagnostic. Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes [WZKM] 98 (2008): 151–188.

5. Corpus-driven models of lexicography and Mesopotamian cultural heritage preservation at CDLI. In R. Biggs, J. Myers and M. Roth, eds., Proceedings of the 51st Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale (Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization [SAOC] 62, Chicago: Oriental Institute, 2008), 69–74.

4. Internally headed relative clauses in Akkadian: Identifying weak quantification in the construct state. Journal of Cuneiform Studies 57 (2006): 85–98.

3. The Ur III tablets in the Valdosta State University Archives. Cuneiform Digital Library Journal 2006: 2.

2. Two Ur III tablets from the Tulare County Library. Cuneiform Digital Library Bulletin 2004: 2.

1. Evidence of antipassivization in Sumerian. Bulletin of the International Institute for Linguistic Sciences Kyoto Sangyo University 21 (2000): 205–240.

Books edited

2. In the Wake of the Compendia: How Technical Handbooks and Encyclopedia Reshape Early Mesopotamian Empiricism (in press at Science, Technology, and Medicine in Ancient Cultures [De Gruyter])

1. (with Steven J. Garfinkle) The Growth of an Early State in Mesopotamia: Studies in Ur III Administration: Proceedings of the First and Second Ur III Workshops at the 49th and 51st Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale (Biblioteca del Próximo Oriente Antiguo [BPOA] 5, Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 2008)

Book reviews

11. Review of N. Postgate, Bronze Age Bureaucracy: Writing and Government in Assyria (in preparation for Bibliotheca Orientalis [BiOr])

10. Review of G. Zólyomi, Copular Clauses and Focus Marking in Sumerian (in preparation for Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies [BSOAS])

9. Review of C. Burnett and S. Stern, eds., Time, Astronomy and Calendars in the Jewish Tradition (in preparation for Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies [BSOAS])

8. Review of M. Sigrist and T. Ozaki, Neo-Sumerian Administrative Tablets from the Yale Babylonian Collection, Parts One and Two (BPOA 6–7) (to appear in in Archiv für Orientforschung [AfO])

7. Review of P. Delnero, The Textual Criticism of Sumerian Literature. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies [BSOAS] 76 (2013): 495–497.

6. Review of S. Stern, Calendars in Antiquity: Empires, States, and Societies. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies [BSOAS] 76 (2013): 301–302.

5. Review of H. Freydank and B. Feller, Mittelassyrische Rechtsurkunden und Verwaltungstexte IX. Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes [WZKM] 102 (2013): 343–347.

4. Review of W. Horowitz, U. Gabbay and F. Vukosavovic, eds., A Woman of Valor: Jerusalem Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Honor of Joan Goodnick Westenholz. Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes [WZKM]102 (2013): 347–350.

3. Review of S. Parpola and R. Whiting, eds., Assyrian-English-Assyrian Dictionary. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies [BSOAS] 74 (2011): 311–312.

2. Review of S. Houston, ed., The First Writing: Script Invention as History and Process. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 17 (2007): 298–300.

1. Review of R. Hasselbach, Sargonic Akkadian: A Historical and Comparative Study of the Syllabic Texts. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz (2005). Review of Biblical Literature (http://www.bookreviews.org/pdf/4914_5134.pdf).

Presentations

39. Talking heads: Identifying multimodal (oral-written) hybrids in ancient Mesopotamia (SFB 980: Episteme in Bewegung Jour Fixe, Berlin, December 12, 2014)

38. Diacrisis and the diacritical feast in early Mesopotamia (Signs of Writing Conference, Chicago, November 8–9, 2014)

37. Statuary peers: Speaking with the statues of famous kings in early Mesopotamian literature (Mesopotamian Belief Systems: A Symposium Dedicated to the Exploration of a Field Delineated by Gebhard J. Selz, Vienna, October 6–7, 2014)

36. Scribe and scholar, physician and exorcist (60th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Warsaw, July 21–25, 2014)

35. The stuff of causation: Modelling fevers in the Babylonian therapeutic corpus (The Body in Ancient Medicine, Oriental Institute, May 1–3, 2014)

35. Defining institutional scale in the Late Uruk and Early Dynastic feast records (Food and Urbanization Workshop, Berlin, March 27–28, 2014, organizer)

34. Meat distribution in Late Uruk diacritical feasts: Second-order bookkeeping techniques and their institutional context in third millennium BCE Mesopotamia (Colloquium Commemorating Peter Damerow, MPIWG, December 19, 2013)

33. Interior geographies in Sumerian mythology and their Enochic ramifications (Enoch Conference, TOPOI, December 18, 2013)

32. The dominant analogy in the Sumerian literary dialogues (Fourth Dahlem Seminar for the History of Ancient Sciences, Berlin, November 11, 2013)

31. Wissensbewegungen im Alten Orient—Wissen und Mehrsprachigkeit (with Jörg Klinger, Wissensbewegung— Bewegliches Wissen, SFB 980, October 23, 2013)

30. Metapragmatic awareness and the stratification of Classical Sumerian literature (Bro/ken Narratives: Tagung der Philologisch-Kulturwissenschaftlichen Fakultät der Universität Wien, April 3–6, 2013)

29. Clockwise and counterclockwise planispheres in Mesopotamia (Third Dahlem Seminar for the History of Ancient Sciences, Berlin, June 4, 2013)

28. Empiricism in Mesopotamian technical literature (American Oriental Society [AOS], Portland, March 15–18, 2013, panel organizer)

27. The social network behind Middle Assyrian archive M4 and its political horizon (American Schools of Oriental Research [ASOR], Chicago, November 14–17, 2012)

26. Construct relativization in East Semitic (Workshop on Internally Headed Relative Clauses, Zentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Berlin, October 25–27, 2012)

25. Die Bedeutung des mittelassyrischen Kalenders für die frühe mesopotamische Astronomie (TOPOI Jahrestagung, Berlin, September 28, 2012)

24. Where narrative histories fail: The gap between Tukulti-Ninurta and Tiglathpileser (American Schools of Oriental Research [ASOR], San Francisco, November 16–19, 2011)

23. Esoteric knowledge in the third millennium BCE: Tracing UD.GAL.NUN Back to Late Uruk Orthographic Practice (Mesopotamian History of the “Early Dynastic Period”: The Present State and Future Prospects, Vienna, Nov. 1–3, 2011)

22. The esoteric origins of the Mesopotamian mythic sage (apkallu) (Knowledge to die for: Transmission of prohibited and esoteric knowledge through space and time, Berlin, May 2–5, 2011)

21. Indexical iconicity in Sumerian belles lettres (Visualizing Knowledge in Signs, Berlin, September 24–25, 2010)

20. Documentary formalism and Zukunftsbewältigung in Middle Assyrian administration (56th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale [RAI], Barcelona, July 27, 2010)

19. Revisiting topicalization à la Yoshikawa: The role of the *im- prefix in topic-comment structures in Sumerian (From the 21st Century BC to the 21st Century AD: The Present and Future of Neo-Sumerian Studies, Madrid, July 22–24, 2010)

18. The Sumerian urban topographic terms (Urban Topography as a Reflection of Society: Language, Image, Archaeology, Berlin, 18–19, June, 2009)

17. Mirativity in Sumerian (American Oriental Society [AOS], Chicago, March 14, 2008)

16. Origo of deixis, decorum and the elaboration of text-artifactual genre (Perception and Representation of Space, Berlin, 14–15, November 2008)

15. The kennings in Gilgamesh’s rejection of Inanna and Amorite cultural identity (American Oriental Society [AOS], San Antonio, March 17, 2007)

14. Contrastive focus, negation and the ambiguity of {kur} (American Oriental Society [AOS], Seattle, March 18, 2006)

13. Low applicatives and the mapping hypothesis in Sumerian (Linguistic Society of America, Albuquerque, January 7, 2006)

12. New digital tools for Mesopotamian cultural heritage preservation at CDLI (51st Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale [RAI], Chicago, July 20, 2005)

11. Internally headed relative clauses in Akkadian: Identifying Weak Quantification in the Construct State (American Oriental Society [AOS], Philadelphia, March 18, 2005)

10. Babel, the critique of hubris, and the Late Old Babylonian Lexical List Tradition (Society of Biblical Literature [SBL], San Antonio, November 21, 2004)

9. Diagnosing presupposition in Sumerian (Sprache Aegyptologie Roundtable, Basel, April 23, 2004)

8. Decomposing lexical aspect in Sumerian (American Oriental Society [AOS], San Diego, March 13, 2004)

7. Sound/Image: The multimodal poetic structure of Bird and Fish 102–117 (American Oriental Society [AOS], Nashville, April 4, 2003)

6. (with Yoko Nishimura) To bevel or not to bevel-rim bowl: Manufacture and craft organization (Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, UCLA, May 7, 2003)

5. Complex graphemes in the proto-cuneiform corpus and the problem of phonological reconstruction (48e Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale [RAI], Leiden, July 2, 2002)

4. (with Wakaha Mori) Detransitivization in Sumerian (42nd Sumerology Workshop, Tokyo, Japan, March 27, 2001)

3. The verbal infix /-ni-/ in the Sumerian of the Old Babylonian period: Mediopassivization and pragmatic constraints on its interpretation (41st Sumerology Workshop, Kyoto, Japan, August 31, 2000)

2. Global case-marking in Sumerian: /mu-/, /ba-/ and /i-/ (6th West Asian Linguistics Meeting, Kyoto, Japan, December 4, 1999)

1. Evidence of antipassivization in Sumerian (40th Sumerology Workshop, Tokyo, Japan, December 23, 1999)