Alexander Green will be Assistant Professor of Humanities starting in Fall 2024. He previously taught at the University of Buffalo. A scholar of Jewish thought and virtue ethics, his research is on medieval and early modern Jewish philosophy, ethics and the history of biblical interpretation. He is the author of two books: The Virtue Ethics of Levi Gersonides (Palgrave, 2016) and Power and Progress: Joseph Ibn Kaspi and the Meaning of History (SUNY Press, 2019), and numerous articles in peer-reviewed publications and edited collections. He also coedited Jewish Virtue Ethics (SUNY Press, 2023).
Green’s current book project, Maimonides’s Moral Psychology, is under contract with Oxford University Press. It is a study of the emotions of love, desire, fear, anger, pride, compassion and justice in Maimonides’s thought. The book makes the case that emotions should not be viewed as blind animal forces or simple bodily reactions, but reflect the central moral beliefs, dilemmas and challenges of the human condition.
“Crescas and Gersonides on Freedom, Astrology and Divine Omniscience,” Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy 31, no. 1 (2023): 57-72.
“Three Readings of Averroes’ Commentary on Plato’s Republic in Medieval Jewish Thought” in Plato’s Republic in the Islamic Context: New Perspectives on Averroes’ Commentary, ed. Alexander Orwin. Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2022: 277-296.
“Joseph Ibn Kaspi on Contradictions in the Bible,” Journal of Religion 101, no. 2 (2022): 184-203.
“Four Critiques of Crescas against Maimonides and the Relationship of Intellect and Practice in Religion,” Journal of Textual Reasoning 13, no. 1 (2022): 68-85.
“David Novak, Natural Law and Medieval Jewish Philosophy,” Journal of Religious Ethics 49, no. 4 (2021): 638-656.
“Gersonides on Job’s Ethical Error,” Journal of Jewish Ethics 7, no. 1-2 (2021): 1-12.
“Does God Prefer the Powerful? Reforming the King in Judah Halevi’s Kuzari,” Jewish Studies Quarterly28, no. 1 (2021): 1-20.
“Gersonides,” in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Religion, vol. ii, eds. Stewart Goetz and Charles Taliaferro. Wiley-Blackwell, 2021
“Fear and Awe in the Thought of Maimonides,” The Bonhoeffer Legacy: An International Journal 7, no. 1-2 (2019): 41-57.
“MacIntyre and Nussbaum on Diversity, Liberalism and Christianity,” Perspectives on Political Science 46, no. 2 (2017): 137-147.
“A Portrait of Spinoza as a Maimonidean Reconsidered,” Shofar 34, no. 1 (2015): 81-106.
“Maimonides on Courage,” Jewish Studies Quarterly 22, no. 2 (2015): 162-183.
“Spinoza on the Ethics of Courage and the Jewish Tradition,” Modern Judaism 33, no. 2 (2013): 199-225.
“Power, Deception and Comedy: The Politics of Exile in the Book of Esther,” Jewish Political Studies Review 23, no. 1 and 2 (2011): 61-78.
