Roehampton University
Open Spaces. Open Minds.
School of Arts
Dr Eric Jacobson
I teach Philosophy, Jewish Studies, Theology and Religious Studies and am concerned with the relationship between religion and violence. My area of expertise is Modern Jewish Thought, 19th and 20th century German-Jewish philosophy and culture, and the conflict between reason and tradition.
I am currently preparing a book on Hannah Arendt, sponsored by the Library of Congress and a larger research grant from the British Academy.
Qualifications: BA, MA (US), Dr Phil (Berlin)
1998 Free University of Berlin
2000 The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
2001 University of Erfurt
2002 University of Sussex
2004 The Library of Congress
2008 Kurt David Brühl Guest Professor in Jewish Studies, University of Graz, Austria
Selected Publications
Metaphysics of the Profane: The Political Theology of Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem, New York: Columbia University Press, 2003.
Weiterwohnlichkeit der Welt. Zur Aktualitaet von Hans Jonas, with Christian Wiese, Berlin: Philo Verlag, 2003.
- "Hans Jonas und der Gottesbegriff nach Auschwitz", pp. 166-183.
“The Future of the Kabbalah: On the Dislocation of Past Primacy, the Problem of Evil and the Future of Illusions”
in: Kabbalah and Modernity, eds. Boaz Huss, Marco Pasi and Kocku von Stuckrad, Leiden: Brill 2009.
"Locating the Messianic: In Search of Causation and Benjamin’s Last Message" in: Journal of Cultural Research Vol. 13, Issue 3&4, July 2009.
"Hannah Arendt 1906-1975" in: Intellectual History Review Vol. 17, Issue 1, March (London 2007)
"Theories of Justice, Profane and Prophetic" in: Gershom Scholem (1897-1982) - In Memoriam, II, Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought, Vol. 21 (Jerusalem 2007)
"Presence and Absence in the Work of Art" (Holocaust and Art) in: Deposits (Berlin 2006)
"Ahavat Yisrael: Nationhood, the Pariah and the Intellectual" in: Creation and Recreation in Jewish Thought: Festschrift in Honor of Joseph Dan (Tuebingen 2005)
"Anarchismo e traditione ebraica" in L'anarchico e l'ebreo, ed. A. Bertolo (Milan 2001), pp. 55-75
"Understanding Walter Benjamin's Theological-Political Fragment", Jewish Studies Quarterly (Berlin, Vol. 8, 2001). pp. 205-247
"Toward a Political Theology of Judaism", [Japanese] in Namal, Journal of the Japanese Institute for Jewish Culture (Kobe Vol. 5, 2000), pp. 20-30
PhD supervision
Modern Jewish Thought / Jewish Philosophy
Philosophy of Religion / Critical Religious Studies
Social Theory / Social Ecology
Jewish Studies