Research Interests

• Philosophy of Religion and Philosophical Theology (contemporary and medieval) 
• Metaphysics (especially the metaphysics of participation) 
• Medieval Philosophy and Theology (e.g. Eriugena, Anselm, Hildegard of Bingen, Aquinas, Julian of Norwich, Nicholas of Cusa) 
• Contemplative Studies (especially Christian contemplative traditions or cross-cultural contemplative approaches) 
• Religion and Ecology (especially ecotheology, the book of nature, contemplative ecologies, the metaphysics of nature) 
• Romanticism and Philosophy (especially Owen Barfield and Coleridge) 
• Esoteric Studies (especially Sophiology)

Biography

Jacob Sherman is Professor in the Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness and the Ecology, Spirituality, and Religion programs at CIIS. Professor Sherman received his Ph.D. in philosophy of religion from the University of Cambridge. He taught previously at King’s College London and from 2014 – 17 held a visiting appointment as University Lecturer in Philosophy of Religion at the University of Cambridge. By training a philosopher, theologian, and religious studies scholar, he is the author of Partakers of the Divine: Contemplation and the Practice of Philosophy, and editor, with Jorge Ferrer, of The Participatory Turn: Spirituality, Mysticism, Religious Studies. The author of over two dozen peer-review articles, essays, and chapters, his writings have appeared in publications such as The Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Modern Theology, the International Journal of Philosophy and Theology, and Theology and Science. He is an elected Fellow of the International Society for Science and Religion, serves on the steering committee for the Contemplative Studies Unity at the American Academy of Religion, and is the Owen Barfield Subject Editor for the Journal of Inklings Studies.

Education

Ph.D., University of Cambridge

M.A., Philosophy, Cosmology and Consciousness (CIIS)

Courses

The Book of Nature

The Evolution of Religious Consciousness: From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age

The Evolution of the Modern Self: From Axial Roots to Postmodern Threshold

Evolution of Modern Society: Spirituality in a Secular Age

Religious Metaphysics after Modernity