Sargon Donabed
Areas of Expertise
Assyrian Studies; Iraq; Indigenous Studies; Minorities in the Middle East; Eastern Christianity; Mythology; Comparative Religion; Immigration History; Animal StudiesEducation
Ph.D. University of Toronto B.A. Stonehill College
From Indigenous and Minoritized Peoples in the Near East and Great Cities: Dublin to Living Nature: Animal Studies to (Deep) Ecological Ethics and Magic Potions Swords and Rings, Professor Sargon Donabed focuses on the notions of re-enchanting, re-wilding, and importance of storytelling. A proponent of panentheism and haecceity, Donabed has created a notion of panenhistoricism as a new historical paradigm in an effort to reimagine divine immance in the “ordinary,” and its transcendence through mystery – rekindling wonder in a more-than- human world.
Raised in New England, a childhood running amok outdoors and reading stories about magic and dragons, Sargon completed his undergraduate degree at Stonehill College before heading to California to enjoy the sun for a moment with friends and family. After returning to the East Coast he taught both middle school and high school (including special education) while studying ancient languages at Hellenic College in Brookline, Mass before moving to Toronto, Canada to pursue an MA and PhD in Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations.
He regularly ‘researches’ cultural heritage and history as well as mythology, folklore, and wisdom literature of the ancient, medieval, and modern world. His contemporary focus consists of indigenous and marginalized communities but also threads of continuity from the ancient to the modern period. He is an expert on the perennial history of Assyro-Mesopotamian culture.
A glutton for academic punishment, he is completing a MS in Anthrozoology/Animal Studies through Canisius College. Sargon is an avid adventurer and enjoys yoga and martial arts as well as almost every other sport imaginable (pending definition of course). And while definitions are feeble interpretations of reality, he would prefer to identify with his love of nature and focus on animal rights as well as wildlife and environmental conservation.
He hopes to one day simply walk into Mordor, learn the spell fireball, locate Elvander on a map (and later the Blessed Isles), and learn the secrets of the Azath and path to ascension. Oh, and be able to stop trophy hunting by revealing the location of the hunters’ privy to the animals. Today, he teaches at Roger Williams University and lives with his human and feline (and all manner of arachnid and a recent formicidae tribe) family in New England.
Some more works written by Professor Donabed:
Assyrians of Eastern Massachussets (MA) (Images of America) (Arcadia Publishing, 2006)
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