Käte Hamburger Kolleg

Unscheduled Professor for the History of Religions

Adam Knobler joined the faculty of CERES in 2013. He was Associate Professor of History at The College of New Jersey from 1998 to 2013. Prior to that he was Assistant Professor of History at TCNJ from 1992 to 1998 and Adjunct Instructor in History at Pennsylvania State University in 1991/1992. Professor Knobler teaches courses on the history of religions, especiallly Judaism and interfaith relations in the medieval mediterranean.

Adam Knobler specializes on the Crusades and Early Modern European imperial expansion with a special focus on the concept of  ‘Holy War’ and the different relations between Jews, Christians and Muslims in this context. He is interested in the uses of mythology in history, and comparative global history in the early modern period. His first monograph, Mythology and Diplomacy in the Age of Exploration, (Brill, 2016) addresses the use of mythologies about potential crusading allies during both the Middle Ages and then the continued affect of these mythologies in early modern Iberian expansion. 

His new book, Crusading in the Long 19th Century: 1798-1928 (Routledge 2024), analyzes the use of crusading rhetoric and ideology empire and nation building in Europe, the Islamic world and Ethiopia. Currently, in conjunction with Prof. Dr. Alexandra Cuffel, he is also working on a book which is forthcoming with Oxford University Press, entitled, Jewish Warriors and the Ten Lost Tribes in Jewish, Christian Muslim Encounters, which is a study of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim imaginings about the ten lost tribes in conjunction with the development of expectations of the Messiah and an anti-Messiah from the early Middle Ages to the nineteenth century.

Education:

• Ph.D., History, Girton College, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK, 1990
• B.A., Medieval Studies, Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, USA, 1985

Duration of Käte Hamburger Fellowship:
October 2011 – December 2011
Project: Jewish Warriors in Distant Lands: Imagining the ten lost Tribes in the Medieval and Early Modern Periods.

Thu 13-14 h

Early Modern Europe and Its Relations with the non-European world, The Crusades; Contemporary Popular Culture