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Charles Lesch | The Department of Political Science

Charles Lesch

Charles  Lesch
Charles
Lesch
Doctor, Department of Political Science
Room 23409, Social Science

 

 

I am a Senior Lecturer in Political Science at the Hebrew University of JerusalemI received my Ph.D. from Harvard University in 2016, and was previously a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Humanities at Washington University in St. Louis and the Mellon Assistant Professor of Political Theory at Vanderbilt University.  My research grapples with questions in contemporary political theory and practice by drawing from the history of European political thought, modern and classical Jewish thought, religious studies, social theory, and literatureI serve as our department's Ph.D. Coordinator and organize the Jerusalem Lecture Series in Political Thought (JSHPT).
 
I am especially interested in questions at the intersection of religion and democracy.  My first bookSolidarity in a Secular Age: From Political Theology to Jewish Philosophy (Oxford University Press, 2022), narrates an untold history of European political theology and spotlights a neglected strand of modern Jewish philosophy to propose a new foundation for liberal-democratic solidarity.  My second bookMaimonides and Jewish Theocracy: The Human Hand of Divine Rule (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming), shows how the"rule of God" is central to Maimonides' thought and argues for how it might be reconciled with modern democracy.
 
My work has appeared in the American Political Science ReviewThe Journal of PoliticsPerspectives on Politics, Critical Review of International Social and Political PhilosophyReligionsInterdisciplinary Journal of Research on ReligionThe Jewish Review of Books, and the Oxford Handbook of Civil SocietyAt Harvard I was awarded the Bowdoin Prize, the university's highest award in the humanities, and at Vanderbilt I received the Robert H. Birkby Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching.  I am currently a Golda Meir Fellow, and have previously been a Mellon/ACLS Fellow, Harvard Presidential Scholar, Fulbright Fellow, Edmond J. Safra Fellow in Ethics, and Harvard Graduate Society Merit FellowI graduated with Phi Beta Kappa honors from Yale in 2009.