Staff profile

My research encompasses the cultural history of Germany from 1750 to the present, with a focus on theology, particularly the interactions between Jewish and Christian communities and the evolution of German-Jewish thought. I engage with literary and philosophical texts as critical interventions that have influenced the political landscape and molded the awareness of their intended audience.

My first monograph, Secularism and Hermeneutics, was published in 2019. It contends that perceiving readers as a unified collective facilitated the transformation of the Bible into a universally valued cultural resource. To substantiate this claim, I investigated the role of biblical interpretation and aesthetics in the writings of J.G Herder, Moses Mendelssohn, Kant, Hamann, Hegel, and Schleiermacher.

My recent publications explore the role of religion in Goethe's thought; the link of Weber's thought to the decision to found a university in Jerusalem; and the polemics revolving a provocative novel that alerts to the potential - and shortfalls - of the solidarity between Jews and Muslims in contemporary Germany. For this latter project, I was awarded the GSA/DAAD's best article prize for 2023. I am active in the field of Jewish theology more broadly, and have examined the notion of Jewish diaspora in several recent publications. 

Expanding on this research, my second book project interrogates post-war literary and artistic representations of Europe as a homeland for Jews. I examine works by Jewish migrants to and from Germany that illustrate the irony arising when the Jewish exile in Europe turned into an exile from Europe. I explore how narratives of a return to Europe continually challenge political theories that consider the Jewish departure from Europe as irreversible, such as Hannah Arendt's analyses of totalitarianism. In disseminating this project to a broader audience, I collaborate with artists and authors, having worked with the Gorki Theatre Berlin, the Goethe Institute Amsterdam, the Tarbut Convention at Schloss Elmau, and the Jewish Museum Berlin.

Before coming to Durham I held several research posts in Germany. I led a research project at the Martin Buber Institute for Jewish Thought and Philosophy at the Goethe University Frankfurt, where I lectured in theology. I have been a fellow in intellectual history at the Lichtenberg-Kolleg in Göttingen. I have also worked at the Center for Literary and Cultural Research Berlin (ZfL). As a review editor for the journal Political Theology, I continue engaging with new publications that bring together religion and political thought. 

Authored book

• Almog, Y. (2019). Secularism and Hermeneutics. University of Pennsylvania Press
• Herder, J. G. (2019). Translation of 'Treatise on the Origin of Language'

Book review

• Almog, Y. (2022). Generation, Gender and Identity in German-Jewish Literature after 1989 by Daphne Maria Seemann. Journal of Modern Jewish Studies,
• Almog, Y. (2020). Georg Benjamin. Ein bürgerlicher Revolutionär im roten Wedding by Bernd-Peter Lange. Weimarer Beiträge,
• Almog, Y. (2020). Zionism and Melancholy: The Short Life of Israel Zarchi. Political Theology, 1-2
• Almog, Y. (2018). In Search of the Hebrew People: Bible and Nation in the German Enlightenment by Ofri Ilany. German History, 36,
• Almog, Y. (2018). Goethe and Judaism: The Troubled Inheritance of Modern Literature by Karin Lynn Schutjer. Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies, 54, 278-280
• Almog, Y. (2018). Prophecies of Language: The Confusion of Tongues in German Romanticism by Kristina Mendicino. German Studies Review, 41, 168-170
• Almog, Y. (2016). Necessary Luxuries: Books, Literature, and the Culture of Consumption in Germany, 1770-1815 by Matt Erlin. Weimarer Beiträge, 62, 630-633
• Almog, Y. (2016). Empire of Chance: The Napoleonic Wars and the Disorder of Things by Anders Engberg Pedersen
• Almog, Y. (2016). The Practices of the Enlightenment: Aesthetics, Authorship, and the Public by Dorothea von Mücke. Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie, 135, 307-309
• Almog, Y. (2013). Zwischen Eros und Mitteilung. Die Frühromantik im Symposion der „Athenaeums-Fragmente“ by May Mergenthaler

Chapter in book

• Almog, Y. (in press). Biblische Raummodelle als Matrix moderner und postmoderner Topografien. In Handbuch zur deutschsprachig-jüdischen Literatur
• Almog, Y. (in press). Arendt against Scholem: Jewish History, Reconsidered. In A. Bielik-Robson (Ed.), Spiritual Investment in the World: Jewish Theologies of Worldliness. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers
• Almog, Y. (in press). Hans Jonas and Hannah Arendt’s Variations on St. Augustine. In D. Herskowitz, & E. Lapidot (Eds.), Hans Jonas: The Early Years. London: Routledge
• Almog, Y. (2024). Religion. In C. Lee (Ed.), Goethe in Context (66-74). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009036436
• Almog, Y. (2024). Jewish Migration in Literature and the Visual Arts. In A. Rowlands, & E. Fiddian-Qasmiyeh (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook for Religion and Contemporary Migration. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190076511.013.4
• Almog, Y. (2023). The Song of Songs in Late Eighteenth-Century Germany: Theology and Desire. In A. Schellenberg (Ed.), The Song of Songs Through the Ages (347-362). De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110750799
• Almog, Y. (2022). Literary Theory as a Site of Religious Reflection. In K. Tugrul, F. M. Machka, & C. Rogers (Eds.), Grenzgänge wissenschaftlicher Reflexivität in Judentum, Christentum und Islam. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft
• Almog, Y. (2022). Reasoning and Exegesis: Hamann and Herder’s Notions of Biblical Hebrew. In D. Kokin (Ed.), Hebrew between Jews and Christians (275-296). De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110339826
• Almog, Y. (2020). Sympathy for Animals and Savages in Herder’s Treatise on the Origin of Language. In E. Piirimäe, J. Schmidt, & L. Steinby (Eds.), Herder on Sympathy and Empathy: Theory and Practice (99-115). Brill Academic Publishers
• Almog, Y. (2020). Ritual Judaism: On Joseph Sasoon Semah’s Artworks. In L. Bouws (Ed.), On Friendship / (Collateral Damage) III – The Third GaLUT: Baghdad, Jerusalem, Amsterdam (67-70). Metropool International Art Projects
• Almog, Y. (2018). Literary Theory. In C. Helmer, & et al. (Eds.), The Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception. De Gruyter
• Almog, Y. (2018). Herder’s Gypsies and Other Nomads. In L. Piasere, & G. Solla (Eds.), I Filosofi E Gli Zingari. Arcane
• Almog, Y. (2017). Europe Will Be Stunned: Visualization of a Jewish Return. In A. Eshel, & R. Seelig (Eds.), The German-Hebrew Dialogue: Studies of Encounter and Exchange (197-210). De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110473384-011
• Almog, Y. (2017). Das Nachleben einer Opferung: zu David Grossmans eine Frau flieht vor einer Nachricht. In F. Priesemuth, D. Linke, & R. Schinagl (Eds.), Sprachen des Unsagbaren (165-180). Springer Verlag
• Almog, Y. (2016). Cognition and the Biblical God: Herder’s Response to Leibniz. In B. Allert (Ed.), Herder: From Cognition to Cultural Science (183-196). Synchron Press
• Gardi, T. (2016). Translation of 'Broken German'. In GRANTA Israel
• Almog, Y. (2016). Das Böse. In D. Weidner (Ed.), Das Handbuch für Religion und Literatur (339-343). Springer Verlag
• Almog, Y. (2015). Biblical Happiness. The Encyclopaedia of the Bible and Its Reception (283-285). De Gruyter
• Almog, Y. (2015). Hearing/Listening. In D. C. Allison, & et al. (Eds.), The Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception. De Gruyter

Edited book

• Almog, Y., & Zamir, M. (Eds.). (2019). Zwischen den Zeilen. Passagen Verlag
• Almog, Y., Sauter, C., & Weidner, D. (Eds.). (2017). Kommentar und Säkularisierung in der Moderne: Vom Umgang mit heiligen und kanonischen Texten. Fink
• Almog, Y., & Born, E. (Eds.). (2012). Neighbors and Neighborhoods: Living Together in the German-Speaking World. Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Journal Article

• Almog, Y. (2023). SELF‐IDENTITY AND THE JEWISH BODY: ASSIMILATED GERMAN‐SPEAKING JEWISH AUTHORS ON TRADITIONAL JUDAISM. German Life and Letters, https://doi.org/10.1111/glal.12381
• Almog, Y. (2022). A University in Zion: Max Weber and Gershom Scholem on Jewish Eschatology and Academic Labor. Modern Intellectual History, 19(4), 1286-1303. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1479244321000329
• Almog, Y. (2022). Politics and Literary Capital in Tomer Gardi's Broken German. German Studies Review, 45(3), 557-576
• Almog, Y. (2021). Hannah Arendt's Political Theology. Political Theology Network, Critical Theory for Political Theology 2.0,
• Almog, Y. (2020). Walter Benjamin's World of Things. Journal for cultural and religious theory, 19(3), 393-403
• Almog, Y. (2020). Religion and Ritual in Times of Social Distancing. Philosopher (Philosophical Society of England. Online), 108(3), 70-77
• Almog, Y. (2019). German-Jewish Studies beyond the Nation-State. The German Quarterly, 92(4), 434-435. https://doi.org/10.1111/gequ.12117
• Almog, Y. (2019). Jewish Diaspora and the Stakes of Nationalism: Margarete Susman’s Theodicy. Religions, 10(2), 1-9. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel10020103
• Almog, Y. (2019). Illusionary Diasporas. Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies, 37(2), 63-70
• Almog, Y. (2018). “Provisionary Nomads: Trends in Contemplating Israelis’ Relationship to Europe.” (online)
• Almog, Y. (2016). Die Judenbuche and the “Judens-buch”: Hermeneutic Hindrance and Scriptural Reading in Droste-Hülshoff's Crime Novella. The German Quarterly, 89(3), 328-342. https://doi.org/10.1111/gequ.12004
• Almog, Y. (2016). Public Rituals: Politics and Myth in David Grossman’s To the End of the Land. Politics and Religion, X(2), 231-250
• Almog, Y. (2015). Footnote: Commentary and/as the Story of an Oedipal Struggle. Trajekte, 31, 17-24
• Almog, Y., Sauter, C., & Weigel, S. (2015). Urszene/Ursprung. Schlüsselbegriffe der Kulturwissenschaft. Trajekte, 30, 4-15
• Almog, Y. (2015). Migration and Its Discontents: Israelis in Berlin and Homeland Politics. TRANSIT, 10(1), 1-10. https://doi.org/10.5070/T7101029567
• Almog, Y. (2015). Estéticas de la Biblia: el imaginario del hebreo en las teorías de la interpretación de Hamann y Herder. Boletín de Estética, 7-36
• Almog, Y., & Sauter, C. (2015). Weltliteratur und Weltreligion: Philologie und die Entdeckung fremder Kulturen um 1800. Kritische Ausgabe - Zeitschrift für Germanistik & Literatur, 28, 67-72
• Almog, Y. (2013). Sublime Readings: The Emergence of the Aesthetic Bible in Herder’s Writings on Hebrew Poetry. The Simon Dubnow Institute Yearbook, 12, 337-352
• Almog, Y. (2010). 'Flowing Myrrh upon the Handles of the Bolt': Bodily Border, Social Norms and their Transgression in the Song of Songs. Biblical Interpretation: A Journal of Contemporary Approaches, 18(3), 251-263. https://doi.org/10.1163/156851510X498223

Scholarly Edition

• Herder, J. G. (in press). Y. Almog (Ed.), Auch eine Philosophie der Geschichte zur Bildung der Menschheit. The Open University of Israel