Some scholars learn a language in order to read ancient texts in their original languages. But just reading about alternative religious movements was not enough for CEU postdoc researcher Eszter Spat.
“I was getting a bit fed up studying religions known only from ancient manuscripts, because a lot of it was guesswork,” she said. Also intensely interested in anthropology, Spat decided to go to northern Iraq, learn Kurdish, and embed herself with a large religious minority called the Yezidis.
