Areas of Research/Interest: Jewish mysticism and philosophy, gender construction and the history of religion, symbolism and myth, philosophical hermeneutics and the phenomenology of religious experience.

External Affiliations: Association for Jewish Studies; American Academy of Religion; World Congress of Jewish Studies; Medieval Academy of America; American Academy of Jewish Research; American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Fellowships/Honors: Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, spring semester 2009; Lynette S. Autrey Visiting Professor, Humanities Research Center, Rice University, fall 2007; National Jewish Book Award in Scholarship awarded to Language, Eros, Being, 2006; Visiting Professor at the Humanities Center, Johns Hopkins University, spring 2005; Brownstone Visiting Professor of Jewish Studies, Dartmouth College, spring 2003; Crown-Minnow Visiting Professor of Theology and Jewish Studies, University of Notre Dame, fall 2002; Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati, Visiting Professor of Jewish Mysticism, spring 2002; Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, fall semester 2000; Shoshana Shier Distinguished Visiting Professor, University of Toronto, spring 1998; Visiting Fellow, Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton, spring 1996; American Academy of Religion Award for Excellence in Historical Studies, awarded to Through a Speculum That Shines, 1995; National Jewish Book Award for Excellence in Scholarship, awarded to Through a Speculum That Shines, 1995; Regenstein Visiting Professor in Jewish Studies, University of Chicago, The Divinity School, winter quarter, 1992.

Select Publications:

A Dream Interpreted Within a Dream: Oneiropoiesis and the Prism of Imagination. Zone Books, 2011.

Open Secret: Postmessianic Messianism and the Mystical Revision of Menahem Mendel Schneerson. Columbia University Press, 2009.

New Studies in Jewish Philosophy, edited with A. Hughes. Indiana University Press, 2009.

Luminal Darkness: Imaginal Gleanings From Zoharic Literature. Oneworld Publications, 2007.

Footdreams and Treetales: 92 Poems. Fordham University Press, 2007.

Alef, Mem, Tau: Kabbalistic Musings on Time, Truth, and Death. University of California Press, 2006.

Venturing Beyond: Morality and Law in Kabbalistic Mysticism. Oxford University Press, 2006.

Language, Eros, Being: Kabbalistic Hermeneutics and Poetic Imagination. Fordham University Press, 2005.

Pathwings: Poetic-Philosophic Reflections on the Hermeneutics of Time and Language. Station Hill/Barrytown Press, 2004.

Suffering Religion, edited together with Robert Gibbs. Routledge, 2002.

Abraham Abulafia--Kabbalist and Prophet: Hermeneutics, Theosophy, and Theurgy. Los Angeles: Cherub Press. 2000.

Reading the Veil: Concealment and Secrecy in the History of Religions. New York: Seven Bridges Press. 1999.

Along the Path: Studies in Kabbalistic Myth, Symbolism, and Hermeneutics. State University of New York Press. 1995.

Circle in the Square: Studies in the Use of Gender in Kabbalistic Symbolism. Albany: State University of New York Press. 1995.

Through a Speculum That Shines: Vision and Imagination in Medieval Jewish Mysticism. Princeton University Press. 1994.