Adviser(s): David Biale

Education and Degree(s):

• M.A., Religious Studies, University of Denver
• B.A., Theology, Colorado Christian University

Research Interest(s):

• Modern Jewish thought
• Jewish-Christian relations
• European intellectual history
• Critical theory
• Psychoanalysis

Teaching Experience:

• RST 12: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
• RST 1C: Sacrifice
• RST 1: Survey of Religion
• RST 33: Magic and Demons in Hinduism and Buddhism
• RST 32: History of Yoga
• RST 23: Introduction to Judaism
• RST 1H: Sex, Marriage, and Divorce
• RST 60: Introduction to Islam
• RST 1G: Myth, Ritual, and Symbol
• RST 1B: Death and Afterlife
• RST 45: Introduction to Christianity
• RST 40: New Testament

Profile:

Benjamin R. Fisher is a PhD candidate in the study of religion with a designated emphasis in critical theory at the University of California, Davis. His main research areas are modern Jewish thought, Jewish-Christian relations, and European intellectual history. His dissertation, Judaism or Barbarism: The Critique of Myth in German-Jewish Thought, chronicles the imagined ambivalence, dissonance, or antagonism between Judaism and mythology in nineteenth and twentieth-century German-Jewish intellectual history from Heymann Steinthal to Theodor Adorno in continuity with a prior Jewish rationalism and as a prelude to major themes and movements in later Jewish thought. This read in the context of the study of mythology in German romanticism, biblical criticism, Orientalism, and comparative religion as well as Jewish Emancipation, the rise of modern racial antisemitism, and the Holocaust. He holds a MA in religious studies with a concentration in philosophy of religion from the University of Denver and a BA in theology from Colorado Christian University. Prior to UC Davis he worked as a research and teaching assistant in philosophy at the University of Denver. He has also published pieces in Critical Research on Religion and Studies in Religion as well as given papers at annual meetings of the American Academy of Religion. His research has been supported by the DAAD German Academic Exchange Service and the Leo Baeck Institute for the Study of German-Jewish History and Culture.

Selected Publications:

• "Messianic Illusions: Taubes, Bloch, Benjamin and the Necessity of Interiority." Critical Research on Religion, vol. 9, no. 3: pp. 249-264, December 6, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1177/20503032211015281.
• Review of Martin Buber's Theopolitics by Samuel Hayim Brody. Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses, vol. 48, no. 4: pp. 692-694, December 19, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1177/0008429819880815c.