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Originally published on the UChicago Intranet

James T. Robinson has served as dean of the University of Chicago Divinity School since 2022, but he has been an integral part of UChicago for more than two decades.

Robinson joined the Divinity School in 2003 as a junior faculty member and has remained there for his entire academic career. During his time on the faculty, he has taught more than 25 courses on medieval Judaism, advised and supported more than 30 dissertations, and received the 2017 Faculty Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching and Mentoring.

As dean, Robinson has presided over notable successes at the school, including the expansion of the faculty and the work of the Martin Marty Center for the Public Understanding of Religion, as well as development of new curricular opportunities and research initiatives.

Robinson’s research focuses on medieval Jewish intellectual history, philosophy and biblical exegesis in the Islamic world and Christian Europe. He is the author of four books, three edited volumes and more than 40 articles and chapters In addition to his faculty roles in the Divinity School and the College, Robinson also holds appointments in the Program in Medieval Studies, Religious Studies, Fundamentals: Issues and Texts, and the Joyce Z. and Jacob Greenberg Center for Jewish Studies. He is also an associate member of the Department of Middle Eastern Studies.

Robinson earned his M.Phil. in Oriental studies (modern Jewish studies) from Oxford University, his master’s degree and Ph.D. in Near Eastern languages and civilizations from Harvard University, and his bachelor’s degree in applied mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley.

In this Q&A, Robinson talks about the role of the Divinity School within the broader university, his leadership style, the school’s future, and more.

Q: What motivates you as dean of the Divinity School?

A: What motivates me most is the opportunity to cultivate and extend a distinctive intellectual experiment, one that has been at the center of the University since its founding. The Divinity School is not simply a place where religion is studied—it is a place where the most enduring human questions are examined with depth, imagination and care. To sustain that work, and to help it grow in new directions, is both a responsibility and a privilege.  

Q: How would you describe your leadership approach?

A: My approach is inductive and collaborative. I begin with the life of the school as it is actually lived—its people, its ideas, its ongoing work—and build from there. The goal is not to impose a single vision, but to create the conditions in which multiple forms of inquiry can flourish together. That means listening carefully, supporting experimentation and identifying the threads that allow very different kinds of work to cohere into a shared intellectual project.

Q: Why is the Divinity School and its focus on the study of religion important to the University’s mission?

A: Religion is one of the most powerful and persistent forces in human life. It shapes cultures, institutions, ethics, politics and personal identities across the globe. A university committed to understanding the world in all its complexity cannot do so without taking religion seriously.

At UChicago, the study of religion has always been central, not peripheral. The Divinity School embodies that commitment by bringing rigorous, critical inquiry to questions that are often treated superficially elsewhere. We teach students how to think carefully, historically and comparatively about phenomena that matter deeply in both public and private life. In this sense, the Divinity School is not only part of the University’s mission–it helps define it.

Q: What makes the Divinity School distinctive within the University?

A: The Divinity School is uniquely hybrid. We bring together the multidisciplinary academic study of religion—historical, philological, philosophical and social-scientific—with the training of religious leaders in a fully integrated environment. Our Ph.D. students, master’s students, master of arts in religious studies (AMRS) students, and M.Div. students learn together, across traditions and disciplines, in a way that is rare in higher education. At the same time, we have built one of the most dynamic undergraduate programs on campus, introducing students from across the College to the critical study of religion.

Q: How do you work with other schools and divisions across campus?

A: One of the great advantages of being at UChicago is the density of intellectual life across divisions, and we actively engage with it. Our faculty collaborate with colleagues in the humanities, social sciences and area studies departments, as well as with professional schools such as Crown, Harris, Chicago Booth and UChicago Law.

These collaborations take many forms: joint teaching, shared research initiatives, dual degree programs and public events that bring different fields into conversation. Our work on religion and science, for example, connects directly with colleagues in the physical and biological sciences, while our work on religion and public life intersects with policy, law and social thought.

The Divinity School is, in many ways, a meeting point within the University—a place where different disciplines converge around shared questions.

Q: What are your priorities for the school in the coming years?

A: We are in a moment of real momentum for the Divinity School, and the priority is to keep building. Over the past year, we launched Swift 100, marking a century of life in Swift Hall, and used that milestone to tell the story of the school in new ways. We have expanded major intellectual initiatives, especially in religion and science and religion and the arts, areas that bring our scholarship into conversation with some of the most pressing questions of the present moment.

At the same time, faculty productivity has been extraordinary: new books, major publications and a growing number of public-facing events that bring their work into conversation with broader audiences. We are seeing record levels of philanthropy year after year, along with record numbers of applications across our degree programs. All of these point to a school that is not only sustaining its traditions but actively redefining its place within the University and beyond.

Q: What excites you most about the future of the Divinity School?

A: What excites me most is the combination of continuity and possibility. We are building on a foundation that is more than a century old, while also opening new pathways for research, teaching, and public engagement. There is a sense among faculty, students, alumni, and supporters that the work we are doing matters and can reach further.

If we continue to strengthen our community, support ambitious scholarship, and remain open to new forms of inquiry, the Divinity School will not only maintain its leadership in the field but continue to be the standard-bearer for how religion is studied in the modern university.