Adjunct Lecturer in Middle Eastern Studies Office: Phone: 404.727.0807 Email: bcollin@emory.edu

Billie Jean Collins received a B.A. in Classics from West Virginia University in 1982 (magna cum laude) and an M.Phil (1985) and Ph.D. (1989) in Near Eastern Languages and Literatures from Yale University. Prior to arriving at Emory in 1995, Dr. Collins spent a year teaching at the Institute for the History of Ancient Civilizations at Northeast Normal University in Changchun, P. R. China and more than four years at The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago as a Research Associate. Her research interests include Hittite religion, society and philology as well as the religions of the ancient Mediterranean world. She has written numerous articles on these topics and edited the volume A History of the Animal World in the Ancient Near East (Brill, 2000). Her monograph, Who Were the Hittites? (Society for Biblical Literature) is scheduled to appear next year. Current projects include a complete collection in translation of the Hittite Ritual Texts.