Professor of Religious Studies
University of Virginia
Asher Biemann is Professor of Religious Studies and a member of the Jewish Studies faculty at the University of Virginia. In addition to being co-director for VCSR, he is Director of the Center for German Studies. His areas of interest are modern Jewish thought and intellectual history, especially of the 19th and 20th centuries. Much of his research focuses on the modern Jewish experience in Central Europe and its interaction with continental thought and culture. He has a special interest in the intellectual formations of Jewish nationalism and Zionism, Jewish art and aesthetics, dialogical thought, and theories of secularization and modernity. Recent books include Martin Buber: Sprachphilosophische Schriften (2003), David Aronson: Painting and Sculpture (2004), Inventing New Beginnings: On the Idea of Renaissance in Modern Judaism (2009), and Dreaming of Michelangelo: Jewish Variations on a Modern Theme (2012). He is also coeditor of Spiritual Homelands: The Cultural Experience of Exile, Place and Displacement among Jews and Others.