Sessional Faculty / Jacob Benjamins
Jacob Benjamins
PhD, MAS, MA, MA
- SSHRC Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Biography
Jacob Benjamins is a SSHRC Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute for Christian Studies. Previously, he was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at St. Michael’s College at the University of Toronto working on a Templeton Foundation project: The Metaphysics of Contemplation: Religious Life as Form of Thought. He is the author of The Play of Goodness: Creation, Phenomenology, and Culture (Fordham, 2025) and the co-editor of two forthcoming volumes on the philosophical significance of contemplative traditions in religious orders. He completed a co-doctorate with KU Leuven and Australian Catholic University with support from the international research project: Atheism and Christianity: Moving Past Polemic. He was the coordinator for the Interfaculty Centre for Catholic Thought at KU Leuven and presently serves as an adjunct instructor for Martin Luther University’s Christianity, Interfaith Dialogue and Community Engagement program. His current research is at the intersection of the philosophy of attention, contemplative traditions, and the philosophy of technology.
Research Foci
- Phenomenology of Religion
- Theology of Creation’s Goodness
- Contemplative Traditions and Philosophy
- Constructive Theology
- Philosophy of Attention
- Philosophy of Technology
Selected Publications
- The Play of Goodness: Creation, Phenomenology, and Culture (New York: Fordham University Press, 2025).
- The Act of Contemplation: Metaphysics, Phenomenology and the Religious Life, co-editor Jacob Benjamins (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, forthcoming).
- From Contemplation to Critique: Key Figures of Social Spirituality in the Twentieth Century, co-editor Jacob Benjamins, in Studies in Spirituality (forthcoming).
- “Contemplating the Whole: Enrique Dussel’s Metaphysics of Exteriority” in Studies in Spirituality (forthcoming).
- “Reenchanting Parenthood: Contemplative Life in the Achievement Society” in Toronto Journal of Theology (forthcoming).
- “Contemplation and Creation’s Goodness: Metaphysics as Preparatory Practice” in The Act of Contemplation (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, forthcoming).
- “Awakening the Real Within the Love of God” in Hoge minne es deen vor dander: Essays on Christian Mystical Tradition in Honour of Rob Faesen SJ, eds. John Arblaster and Michiel Vandenbroucke (Turnhout: Brepols, 2026).
- “Metaphorical Bridges: Paul Ricoeur’s Theory of the Interanimation of Discourses for Phenomenology of Religion” in Research in Phenomenology (volume 49, 2019), 403–424.
- “Are We Living in an Era of Nihilism? Jean-Luc Marion and Reading the Signs of the Times” in Literature and Theology (volume 33:4, 2019), 476–491.
- “The Politics of Wandering in Michel de Certeau” in Political Theology (volume 19:1, 2018), 50–60.