Jacques Berlinerblau

Jacques Berlinerblau is a Professor, the Rabbi Harold White Chair in Jewish Civilization, and the Director of the Center for Jewish Civilization at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He has doctorates in Ancient Near Eastern languages and literature (from NYU) and theoretical sociology (from the New School for Social Research). He has published on a wide variety of scholarly subjects with special attention to heresy, atheism, secularism, Jewish-American literature and biblical literature.[1]

From 2007–2009 he wrote the blog The God Vote,[2] an exploration of the role of faith in the 2008 U.S. presidential race, for Newsweek 's On Faith website.[3]

Berlinerblau hosts and produces the show Faith Complex which is described as "a dialogue about the intersection of religion, politics and art." In 2010 he launched a second show with The Washington Post's Sally Quinn entitled "The God Vote" which focuses on news cycle issues involving faith and politics. In addition to this work in visual media, Berlinerblau blogged for The Chronicle of Higher Education's "Brainstorm" page between 2010-2012. He wrote about secularism, literature, and various subjects in higher education.[4] His work on religion and politics and the 2012 election also appeared in the Huffington Post.[5]

Outside his usual publications on scholarly areas of interest, Berlinerblau has turned his attention to the interview format in recent years.

His guests in the arts have included:

• Georgetown Professor Michael Eric Dyson[6] discussing hip-hop theology
• Director of the Washington Ballet Septime Webre[7] on homophobia and ballet
• Novelist Cynthia Ozick[8]
• Novelist Gary Shteyngart[9]
• Novelist David Bezmozgis[10]
• Novelist Lara Vapnyar[11]
• Dr. Derek Parker Royal[12] (founder of the Philip Roth Society)
• Literary critics Adam Kirsch and Liel Leibovitz[13] discussing Philip Roth’s career;

Some of his interview subjects in the political sphere have included:

• The former President of Poland, Aleksander Kwaśniewski[14]
• The former Prime Minister of Spain, José Maria Aznar[15]
• Congressman Jim Moran[16]
• The Special Envoy to Combat and Monitor Anti-Semitism, Hannah Rosenthal[17]