James Robinson's research focuses on medieval Jewish intellectual history, philosophy, and biblical exegesis in the Islamic world and Christian Europe. His main interests are in the literary and social dimensions of philosophy, and the relation between philosophy and religion. Specific interests include ethics, political philosophy, and psychology; the history of philosophical-allegorical exegesis; the translation and reception of Greek and Arabic philosophy and science; Jewish Sufism and Neoplatonism; Maimonides, Maimonideanism, and the Maimonidean controversies; religious polemic; sermons and homilectical literature; and the interactions between the Jewish, Islamic, and Christian intellectual traditions.
Prof. Robinson is also with the History of Religions and Islamic Studies areas in the Divinity School. He is a member of the Chicago Center for Jewish Studies and is affiliated with Fundamentals: Issues and Texts and the Program on Medieval Studies in the College.