Dr. Julye Bidmead is Associate Professor and Director of the Religious Studies Minor. Dr. Bidmead holds a Ph.D. in Religion from Vanderbilt University, which focused on the religions and cultures of the ancient Near East. Prior to joining Chapman University in 2007, she held faculty positions at Miami University (OH), James Madison University, and California State University, Fresno. Her publications include The Akitu Festival: Religious Continuity and Royal Legitimation in Mesopotamia (Gorgias Press, 2004), Invest Your Humanity (Pickwick, 2016), and numerous articles on Near Eastern religions, ritual studies, magic, and gender. Dr. Bidmead is currently finishing a manuscript, Recovering Women's Rituals in the Ancient Near East (Equinox Press), that uncovers and examines women's religious and domestic rituals in antiquity.