Curriculum Vitae
Professional Appointments
Reed College
Assistant Professor of History and Humanities, 2005-09
Associate Professor of History and Humanities, 2009-present
Stanford Humanities Center, Stanford University
Visiting Professor and Fellow
2007-08
University of Chicago
Collegiate Assistant Professor and Fellow, Society of Fellows
2002-05
Education
University of California, Berkeley
Ph.D. History, 2002
Freie Universität Berlin
DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) Scholar, 1999
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Rotary Fellow, 1994-95
Universität Freiburg
DAAD Scholar, 1993-94
University of Virginia
B.A. History, 1993, Highest Distinction
Distinguished Majors Program: Top Graduate in History, 1993
Phi Beta Kappa
Books
God Interrupted: Heresy and the European Imagination Between the World Wars
Princeton University Press, 2008
Best First Book in the History of Religion (American Academy of Religion)
Koret Foundation Publication Prize
Templeton Foundation Award
The Berkeley Guides: Germany and Austria, 4th ed. (New York, 1996).
Articles and Essays
"The Phobic Regimes of Modernity" (co-author with Jan Plamper), Representations, forthcoming.
"Natural Right and Liberalism: Leo Strauss in Our Time," Modern Intellectual History, 6, 1 (2009), 171-188.
"The Origins of 'Political Theology': Judaism and Heresy Between the Wars," New German Critique 105, 35:3 (Fall 2008), 143-164.
"Pauline Theology in the Weimar Republic: Hans Jonas, Karl Barth, Martin Heidegger," in Hava Tirosh-Samuelson and Christian Wiese, eds., Judaism and the Phenomenon of Life: the Legacy of Hans Jonas (Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 2008), 107-129.
"Abject Academy, 1936-1939," in William Cohen and Ryan Johnson, eds., Filth: Dirt, Disgust and Modern Life (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005).
"Overcoming Gnosticism: Hans Jonas, Hans Blumenberg and the Legitimacy of the Natural World," Journal of the History of Ideas 64 (2003), 619-637.
Winner of the Selma V. Forkosch Prize (best article in the Journal of the History of Ideas, 2003)
"Writing the Judenzarathustra: Gershom Scholem’s Encounter with Modernity, 1913-1917," New German Critique 85 (2002), 33-67.
Reviews
Review: Leo Strauss and the Theological-Political Problem. By Heinrich Meier. Translated by Marcus Brainard. Modern European Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. In Religious Studies Review (forthcoming).
"The Philosopher, the Heretic, the Jew and His Lovers: Spinoza," The Jerusalem Report (October, 2006)
Review: On the Possibility of Jewish Mysticism in Our Time & Other Essays. By Gershom Scholem. Edited by Avraham Shapira. Philadelphia, 1997. In Studies in Contemporary Jewry.
Other
Editor: "The Ends of Nature: Special Issue on Hans Blumenberg," Qui Parle: Literature, Philosophy, Visual Arts, History 12, 1 (Spring/Summer, 2000).
In Preparation
"Earthrise, or the Globalization of the World Picture"
"The Jews They Were and the Philosopher They Wished to Become: How to Write Modern Jewish Intellectual History"
Awards
Stanford Humanities Center Residential Fellowship, 2007-08
Koret Foundation Publication Prize, 2005
Selma V. Forkosch Prize (for best article in the Journal of the History of Ideas, 2003)
Charlotte W. Newcombe Fellowship, Woodrow Wilson Foundation, 2001-2002
Jacob K. Javits Fellowship, U.S. Department of Education, 1997-2001
David Baumgardt Memorial Fellowship, Leo Baeck Institute, 2000
Doreen B. Townsend Center for the Humanities Fellowship, UC Berkeley, 2000
DAAD Scholar, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany, 1999
Rotary Foundation Scholar, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1994-1995
DAAD Scholar, Universität Freiburg, Germany, 1993-1994
Virginia Honors Scholar, University of Virginia, 1989-1993
Echols Scholar, University of Virginia, 1989-1993
Teaching
Whole Earths, Globalizations, World Pictures
Histories of Biological Life in the Liberal Era
Technology and Social Thought in Twentieth-Century Europe
Social Action in the Twentieth Century
1968: Origins, Actions, Afterlives
Liberalism and its Critics: Political Thought from Hobbes to the Present
The Problem of Western Prosperity: Political Economy in History and Theory
Germany 1918-1945
Modern European Humanities, 1750-1950
Theology and the European Imagination Between the World Wars
Modern Jewish History