Nathaniel Berman

Nathaniel Berman is Brown University’s Rahel Varnhagen Professor Emeritus of International Affairs, Law, Modern Culture, and Religious Studies. Berman’s work is highly interdisciplinary, marshalling the resources of psychoanalysis, literary criticism, cutural studies, and political theory to think about the problem of “alterity” in diverse fields of study. As a scholar of international law, Berman focuses on nationalism, colonialism, self-determination, and ethnic conflict, as well as the law of war. As a scholar of religious studies, Berman focuses on Jewish mysticism, particularly thirteenth century kabbalistic mythology. Among his many publications are Passion and Ambivalence: Colonialism, Nationalism, and International Law (The Hague: Brill, 2011) and Divine and Demonic in the Poetic Mythology of The Zohar: the "Other Side" of Kabbalah (The Hague: Brill 2018). He is currently working on two books: Demonization: Law, Religion, Politics and Anger, Evil, and Death: Existential Crisis and Kabbalistic Myth. Berman received a J.D. from Harvard Law School and a Ph.D. in Jewish Studies from University College London. He has held faculty positions at Amherst College, Northeastern Law School, Brooklyn Law School, and Brown University.