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From Microscopes to Manuscripts | Campaign

From Microscopes to Manuscripts

Shachar Orlinski

After graduating high school, Shachar Orlinski thought she had her academic path set out for her. She had studied in an honors biology program and saw her future in the lab. But a year in, she realized biology wasn’t for her. Yet she was positively struck by how much she enjoyed conducting research.

Exploring her options, she took a course on Latin American history – and felt like she’d won the lottery. History was her calling! She became increasingly interested in early medieval Northern European history, even taking summer courses in Latin and paleography (the study of historical writing systems and manuscripts) at the National Library of Israel.

After completing her master’s degree under the guidance of Hebrew University’s Prof. Yitzhak Hen, she decided to continue her studies and was accepted to the Barbara and Morton Mandel Doctoral Program in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Shachar is greatly enjoying the program’s interdisciplinary learning, being challenged by her peers, workshops to hone her academic and presentation skills, developing herself as a scholar, and of course, the program’s social aspects, as research can often be a lonesome experience.

“I’m thankful for the support that enables me to dedicate myself to my studies and intellectual endeavors,” says Shachar. “The study of humanities enables us to better understand humankind, human culture, and ourselves, and this requires developing and honing critical thinking skills.”

Shachar’s doctoral research attempts to elucidate what it meant to be legally free in the Merovingian Gaul (western Europe, 5th-8th centuries CE). She’s drawing on historical texts, chronicles, and legal documents – all in Latin – to understand what freedom meant in the region, as the Roman Empire was coming to an end, yet its influences remained.

The study of history is a method of gauging the different possible manifestations of human nature. Research into the past provides important insight into contemporary events, as well as into our own hearts and minds.”

Photograph by Maxim Dinshtein