The external site contains an anthology of my work in music, film, and the visual arts from the 1980s to the present.

“Wordplay” in Ancient Near Eastern Texts (2021) 

This monograph is free to download through SBL Press. Click here. The book offers a comparative study of the various functions that wordplay serves in ancient Near Eastern texts and provides a comprehensive taxonomy for the phenomenon. Languages covered include Sumerian, Akkadian, Egyptian, Ugaritic, biblical Hebrew, and Aramaic. The monograph also examines definitions of "wordplay" by exploring ancient conceptions of words and the generative role of scripts (consonantal, syllabic, and pictographic). Also discussed... (more on the book)

Piety and Freethinkers on Wisconsin’s Frontier: The Life and Work of Carl Renatus Wilhelm Erbe, with an English Translation of Erbe’s German Sacramental Register, 1851-1886 (2018)

In this book, I examine the life and work of the itinerant preacher Carl Renatus Wilhelm Erbe and the community that he served. Erbe is unique because he was not affiliated with any church. From 1851 to his death in 1887, Erbe went mostly on foot to serve several pioneering communities in Sheboygan County, Wisconsin; communities that were largely connected to the Freethinker movement. The Freethinker (German "Freidenker") movement espoused a religious philosophy that emphasized improvement of life in this world rather than preparation for heaven . . . (more on the book)

A Pioneering Kin: The Mog, Eckardt, Fohl, and Noegel Families of Wisconsin (2015)

This book offers a historical portrait of the four immigrant families who constitute my ancestry. It traces their origins back to 16th century Germany and Luxembourg and charts the changing fortunes and historical circumstances that encouraged them to immigrate to America in the early 19th century. The four families were among the earliest settlers in Wisconsin, lived among Native American tribes . . . (more)

Solomon's Vineyard: Literary and Linguistic Studies in the Song of Songs
Co-authored with Gary A. Rendsburg (2009).

This book contains four interconnected studies on the biblical Song of Songs. The first details the evidence for the Song's northern (Israelian Hebrew) dialect; the second examines the poem's sophisticated use of... (more).

Nocturnal Ciphers: The Allusive Language of Dreams in the Ancient Near East (2007)

This monograph seeks to understand the cultural context and function of word play as employed by ancient Mesopotamian dream interpreters and other divinatory experts. It then aims to use this context to explain the presence of punning in Akkadian literary and epistolary accounts of enigmatic dreams. This study also examines the later appearance of Egyptian oneirocritic punning . . . (more).

Egyptian Hieroglyphs Made Easy. Book and CD-ROM (2006)

Smiles Productions. This workbook and interactive CD-ROM allows users to acquire a basic knowledge of ancient Egyptian vocabulary and grammar. IBM/PC compatible only. . . (more)

Afroasiatic Linguistics, Semitics, and Egyptology: Selected Writings of Carleton T. Hodge (2004)

An edited collection of twenty essays by the late Carleton Hodge of Indiana University. The work outlines Hodge's life and career, and highlights some of Hodge's most important contributions to a number of disciplines including Egyptology and Semitics, as well as Afroasiatic, Chadic, and Indo-European linguistics . . . (more)

Prayer, Magic, and the Stars in the Ancient and Late Antique World (2003)

In the religious systems of ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Mediterranean, gods and demigods were neither abstract nor distant, but communicated with mankind through signs and active intervention. Men and women were thus eager to interpret, appeal to, and even control the gods and their agents . . . (more)

Historical Dictionary of Prophets in Islam and Judaism (2002)

Both Islam and Judaism recognize and draw theological and historical lessons from some of the same narrative sources, but this is the first comparative resource to provide interdisciplinary coverage of the history and textual sources associated with prophets and prophecy. This thorough treatment of a difficult . . . (more)

Puns and Pundits: Wordplay in the Hebrew Bible and Ancient Near Eastern Literature (2000)

This book brings together seventeen international scholars whose works encompass some of the most important languages and literatures of the ancient and late antique Near East. The scholars who appear in this volume have been selected because of their prior interest in word play phenomena . . . (more)

Janus Parallelism in the Book of Job (1996)

The term Janus Parallelism describes a literary device in which a middle stich of poetry contains a pun, which in one of its meanings parallels the line that precedes it and in another, parallels the line that follows. This book, a revised version of the author's doctoral dissertation, provides a history of research on the device . . . (more)