Jay Michaelson | Academic CV
EDUCATION
Ph.D, Jewish Thought, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2013
Dissertation, “I Do Not Look to Heaven, but at What God Does on Earth: Materialism, Sexuality, and Law in Jacob Frank’s Zbior Slow Panskich”
Rabbinic Ordination, Non-denominational, Rabbi David Cooper, 2013
M.F.A., Writing, Sarah Lawrence College, 2010
M.A., Comparative Religion, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2001
J.D., Yale Law School, 1997
B.A. Magna Cum Laude, English, Columbia University, 1993
ACADEMIC EXPERIENCE
Chicago Theological Seminary, Affiliated Assistant Professor, 2014-present
Taught courses on Religious Liberty and LGBT Equality; Religious Liberty, Civil Rights and Public Policy; Progressive Responses to Anti-LGBTQ Campaigns; and Contemporary Meditation and Buddhist Modernism
Brown University, Visiting Scholar, 2013-14
Harvard Divinity School, Field Education Supervisor, 2012
Supervised student research in LGBT identity and religion
Boston University Law School, Visiting Assistant Professor, 2007-08
Taught Law & Religion and Environmental Ethics
Faculty member, Boston University Jewish Studies program
City College of New York, Adjunct Professor, 2005
Taught undergraduate course in Jewish mysticism
New York University Law School, Golieb Fellow in legal history, 1999-2000
United States Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit, Clerk, Judge Merrick Garland, 1998-’99
Yale University, Instructor, 1996-97
Taught college seminar in Jewish Mysticism
Teaching Assistant, Professor Nicholas Wolterstorff
PUBLICATIONS
Academic Articles
Talmudic Transgressions: Engaging the Work of Daniel Boyarin (Review), Reading Religion (June 2019)
“I could see from one end of the world to the other”: Frankist Sexual Antinomianism as Material Mystical Messianism, submission in progress
Queering Martin Buber: Harry Hay’s Erotic Dialogical, Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies, Vol. 36, No. 3 (Winter 2018), pp. 31-59
Conceptualizing Jewish Antinomianism in the Teachings of Jacob Frank, Modern Judaism — A Journal of Jewish Ideas and Experience (Volume 37, Issue 3, 2017)
The Repersonalization of God: Monism and Theological Polymorphism in Zoharic and Hasidic Imagination, in Imagining the Jewish God (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016)
Homosexuality in Modern Judaism, in The Encyclopedia of the Bible and its Reception (De Gruyter, 2016)
Queer Theology and Social Transformation: Twenty Years after Jesus Acted Up, Theology and Sexuality (Volume 21, Issue 3, 2015)
Hating the Law for Christian Reasons: The Religious Roots of American Antinomianism, in Jews and the Law, Marc Galanter, Victoria Saker Woeste, and Ari Mermelstein, eds. (Quid Pro, 2014)
A Minyan of Masculinities: German and Zionist Constructions of the Jewish Man (review), H-Net Reviews (February, 2015)
Gay Men’s Interpretation of the Bible, in The Encyclopedia of the Bible and its Reception (De Gruyter, 2013)
Kabbalah and Queer Theology: Resources and Reservations, Theology and Sexuality, Volume 18, Number 1 (2012)
Queering Kabbalistic Gender Dimorphism, in Queer Religion, Donald Boisvert and Jay Johnson, eds. (Praeger, 2011)
Chaos, Law, and God: The Religious Meanings of Homosexuality, 15 Mich. J. of Gender & Law 41 (2008)
In Praise of the Pound of Flesh: Legalism, Multiculturalism, and the Problem of the Soul, 6 J. L. Society 98 (2005)
On Listening to the Kulturkampf, or, How America overruled Bowers v. Hardwick, Even though Romer v. Evans Didn’t, 49 Duke L.J. 1559 (2000)
Geoengineering: A Climate Change Manhattan Project, 17 Stan. Envtl Law Journal 73 (1998)
Rethinking Regulatory Reform: Toxics, Politics, Ethics, 105 Yale L.J. 1891 (1996)
Books
The Heresy of Jacob Frank: From Jewish Antinomianism to Esoteric Myth (currently under review)
Enlightenment by Trial and Error: Ten Years on the Slippery Slopes of Jewish Spirituality, Postmodern Buddhism, and Other Mystical Heresies (Ben Yehuda Press, 2019)
Is: Heretical Poems and Blessings (Ben Yehuda Press, 2017)
The Gate of Tears: Sadness and the Spiritual Path (Ben Yehuda Press, 2015)
Evolving Dharma: Meditation, Buddhism, and the Next Generation of Enlightenment (North Atlantic Books, 2013)
Rethinking Religious Liberty: The Hidden Assault on Civil Rights (Report, Political Research Associates, 2013)
God vs. Gay? The Religious Case for Equality (Beacon, 2011)
Everything is God: The Radical Path of Nondual Judaism (Shambhala, 2009)
God in Your Body: Kabbalah, Mindfulness, and Embodied Spiritual Practice (Jewish Lights, 2007)
PRESENTATIONS
Queer Theology and Jewish Hermeneutics
Jewish Theological Seminary, July 2019
Religious Liberty and/or Civil Rights
Religious Studies Lecture, University of Kansas, May 2019
Holy Madness in Comparative Perspective
American Academy of Religion, 2018
What is Masterpiece Cakeshop Really About?
Rutgers Law School, April 2018
Meditation and Toxic Masculinity: Sex, Gender, and Patriarchy in American Buddhism
Smith College, March 2018
Antisemitism and Xenophobia in the Age of Donald Trump
SUNY New Paltz, 2017
Queering Jewish Theology: Boundaries and the Boundless
Castaneda Lecture, Chicago Theological Seminary, 2017
The Antinomianism of Jacob Frank: Between Philosophical Critique and Esoteric Myth
University of Pittsburgh, 2017
Queer Theology and Social Transformation: Points of Contact, Points of Conflict
University of Pittsburgh, 2017
Religious Exemptions: Civil Rights and the Parameters of Liberty
University of Pittsburgh Law School, 2017
Same Sex Marriage as Resistance in an Age of White Supremacy
American Academy of Religion, 2016
Religious Liberty and Civil Rights
University of Central Florida, 2016
Mysticism and Activism
Union Theological Seminary, 2015
The Scholar-Practitioner
American Academy of Religion, 2015
Religious Exemptions: Civil Rights and the Parameters of Liberty
University of Arkansas Law School, 2015
Jesus Acted Up: Twenty Years Later
American Academy of Religion, 2014
Can There Be a Jewish Contemplative Studies?
Int”l Symposium for Contemplative Studies, October 2014
What is the Meaning of Frankist Sexual Antinomianism?
Association for Jewish Studies, 2014
Queer Theology and Social Transformation
Boswell Lecture, Pacific School of Religion, 2014
Religious Refusals: Legal, Political and Ethical Implications
Yale Law School, 2014
Was Frankism the Link Between Kabbalah and Enlightenment?
Association for Jewish Studies, December 2013
Religious Freedom and Equal Treatment: An International Look
Brooklyn Law School, October 2013
Frankism as Skeptical Antinomianism
Association for Jewish Studies, December 2012
The Erotic Dialogical: Harry Hay in the Light of Martin Buber
CUNY, October 2012
Rabbi Professor: Neo-Hasidism as Spiritual Bricolage
Van Leer Institute, June 2012
Homosexuality, Law, and Religion
Michigan Psychological Association, 2012
Queering God, Torah & Israel
Bunis Lecture, Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, 2012
Queering Kabbalistic Gender Dimorphism
American Academy of Religion, 2011
Queer Activism & Queer Scholarship
Pacific School of Religion, 2011
God, Gender, and Justice
University of Chicago, 2011
Liminality, Identity, and the “Good Gays”
Vanderbilt University, 2011
Homosexuality and Liminality
Berkeley Graduate Theological Union, 2010
Embodiment in Jewish Spiritual Practice
Academy of Jewish Religion, 2009
Homosexuality, Liminality, and Law
Boston University Law School, 2008
Vedanta & Neo-Hasidism
American Academy of Religion, 2007
Anti-legalism and anti-Judaism
Cardozo Law School, 2006
The New Jewish Culture and the Archair Revival
Lehigh University, 2006
Kabbalah and Eros
Drew University, 2004
RESEARCH AREAS
Heresy and Antinomianism; LGBTQ Issues and Religion; Religious Liberty and Civil Rights; Queer Theology; Contemporary Spirituality; Buddhist Modernism and Contemporary Meditation; Modern and Postmodern Jewish Theology; Law and Religion; Jewish Mysticism and Kabbalah.
HONORS, FELLOWSHIPS, AND AWARDS
New York Society for Professional Journalists Award for best opinion writing, 2011 and 2014
Lambda Literary Award finalist, 2012
Forward 50, list of fifty most prominent American Jews, 2010
Weinig Traveling Fellowship, 1998
Senior Editor, Yale Law Journal, 1997
Olin Fellowship in Law, Economics, and Public Policy, 1997
Ambrose Gherini Prize for best article on international law, Yale Law School, 1997
Israel Peres Prize for best note in Yale Law Journal, 1996
Dorot Fellowship, 1993
James C. Caraley Prize for student activism, Columbia University, 1992
