Richard Hecht
Richard Hecht | |
|---|---|
| Residence | Santa Barbara, California, United States |
| Alma mater | University of California, Los Angeles |
| Known for | religion and science |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | History of religions, Jewish studies |
| Institutions | University of California, Santa Barbara |
| Doctoral advisor | Kees W. Bolle |
Richard David Hecht is an American historian of religions and Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His scholarship centers on the general history of religions, Jewish studies, and the intersections of religion, politics, and culture.
Biography
Hecht was trained as a historian of religions at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he studied under Kees W. Bolle and worked within the tradition associated with Mircea Eliade. He received his Ph.D. in the history of religions from UCLA in 1976.
He joined the faculty of the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he became a full professor in 1991 and served as director of the Center for the Study of Religion from 2000 to 2018. He taught at UCSB for more than four decades before retiring, and he is now Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies. He is also affiliated with the university's Jewish Studies Program and Comparative Literature Program, and resides in Santa Barbara, California.
Work
Hecht's research addresses the general history of religions, Judaism, and the deep contextualization of religion within its lived environments, with particular attention to the relationships among religion, politics, and culture. His teaching has included advanced Hebrew text courses spanning ancient Israel and the Hebrew Bible, rabbinic Judaism, and medieval and modern Jewish thought, as well as seminars on religion and violence and the history of religions.
With the sociologist Roger Friedland he wrote To Rule Jerusalem, a study of the contest over the holy places of Jerusalem, together with a series of related comparative studies of religion, violence, and sacred space. He also co-edited, with Vincent F. Biondo, the reference work Religion and Culture: Contemporary Practices and Perspectives.
Books
- To Rule Jerusalem (with Roger Friedland), Cambridge University Press, 1996; revised edition, University of California Press, 2000.
- Religion and Culture: Contemporary Practices and Perspectives (edited with Vincent F. Biondo), 2011.
External links
- Richard D. Hecht at the UC Santa Barbara Department of Religious Studies