Sarah Hammerschlag
John Nuveen Professor of Divinity
University of Chicago Divinity School
Sarah Hammerschlag has taught at the University of Chicago Divinity School since 2013, where she is a scholar in the area of Religion and Literature, philosophy of religion and history of Judaism. Her research thus far has focused on the position of Judaism in the post-World War II French intellectual scene, a field that puts her at the crossroads of numerous disciplines and scholarly approaches including philosophy, literary studies, and intellectual history. Her first book, The Figural Jew: Politics and Identity in Postwar French Thought, received an Honorable Mention for the 2012 Jordan Schnitzer Book Award, given by the Association of Jewish Scholars, and was a finalist for the AAR’s Best First Book in the History of Religions in 2011. She is editor of The Journal of Religion and co-editor of The Brandeis Library of Modern Jewish Thought.
Selected Publications
The Figural Jew: Politics and Identity in Postwar French Thought (University of Chicago Press, 2010)
Broken Tablets: Levinas, Derrida and the Literary Afterlife of Religion (Columbia University Press, 2016)
Modern French Jewish Thought: Writings on Religion and Politics (Brandeis University Press, 2018)
Devotion: Three Inquiries in Religion, Literature and Political Imagination (University of Chicago, 2021)
Critical Terms for Religious Studies (University of Chicago Press, 2025)