Michael T. Miller, PhD

Dr Michael T Miller works in Jewish Studies and Religious Studies, specialising in Jewish mysticism and philosophy, and more recently, Black Judaism. His current research looks at the Black Hebrew Israelite movement, an autonomous African American form of Judaism. In particular he works on the African Hebrew Israelites, a community that emigrated to Israel in 1969 and have developed their own syncretic religious lifestyle there. This work has led to an interest in African American religion generally, especially as it evolved during the twentieth century.

He gained his PhD in 2014 (Theology/Jewish Studies), from the University of Nottingham. His first monograph, The Name of God in Jewish Thought (Routledge 2016) offered a philosophical/theological examination of Jewish mystical traditions regarding the relationship of naming to identity, incorporating apocalyptic, rabbinic, and kabbalistic texts analysed through the lens of thinkers such as Rosenzweig, Benjamin, and Levinas. He is currently working on a book about the thought and theology of Ben Ammi, the spiritual leader of the African Hebrew Israelites. This text, the first on Hebrew Israelite theology, will locate Ben Ammi within the context of both twentieth century Black American theology and political thought, and Jewish thought.

He taught in Jewish Studies and Philosophy at Liverpool Hope University from 2016-2019, was a Research Fellow at FAU Erlangen-Nurnberg, and currently works at the Polish Institute of Advanced Studies in Warsaw.