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David Albertson

Professor of Religion and Philosophy
David Albertson
Email dalberts@usc.edu Office ACB 227 Office Phone (213) 740-7050

Biography

David Albertson is Professor of Religion and Philosophy at the University of Southern California and an award-winning teacher and writer. He is the author of five books and three dozen articles in medieval philosophy, medieval mysticism, and philosophy of religion. 

Albertson received his B.A. in Religious Studies from Stanford University and Ph.D. in Religion from the University of Chicago, after which he spent a year at the Universität zu Köln in Germany with a Fulbright Fellowship before arriving at USC. His most recent works are The Geometry of Christian Contemplation: Measure without Measure (Oxford University Press, 2025) and Cusanus Today: Thinking with Nicholas of Cusa between Philosophy and Religion (The Catholic University of America Press, 2024). His next book, co-authored with political theorist Jason Blakely, is Utopia for Our Century: A Manifesto of Hope (Yale University Press, 2026).

Albertson’s first book, Mathematical Theologies: Nicholas of Cusa and the Legacy of Thierry of Chartres (Oxford University Press, 2014), won the Manfred Lautenschlaeger Prize from the Universität Heidelberg. His research has been supported by multiple grants from the NEH and fellowships from the ACLS, The Huntington Library, and the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung. Most recently he was a visiting researcher at the Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte in Berlin and was appointed J. E. & Lillian Byrne Tipton Distinguished Visiting Professor of Catholic Studies at UC Santa Barbara. Albertson is past President of the American Cusanus Society and serves on the Wissenschaftliche Beirat der Cusanus-Gesellschaft at the Universität Trier.

His current projects include editing the Cambridge Companion to Nicholas of Cusa and translating monastic letters and treatises from the late medieval Tegernsee controversy with K. Meredith Ziebart and Thomas Izbicki for Peeters Press.

In 2020, Albertson founded the Nova Forum for Catholic Thought, now affiliated with the In Lumine Network, a national consortium of Catholic institutes supported by the John Templeton Foundation. He writes for Commonweal and America Magazine. 

Education

  • B.A. Religion, Stanford University
  • M.Div. Theology, University of Chicago
  • Ph.D. Religion, University of Chicago

  • Summary Statement of Research Interests

    Medieval and early modern Christianity; Christian mysticism; medieval and early modern philosophy; history of Platonism; religion and visual culture; philosophy of religion

  • Book

    • Albertson, D., Blakely, J. (2026). Utopia for Our Century: A Manifesto of Hope. New Haven: Yale University Press. [Link to book]
    • Albertson, D. (2025). The Geometry of Christian Contemplation: Measure without Measure. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [Link to book]
    • Albertson, D. (2024). Cusanus Today: Thinking with Nicholas of Cusa Between Philosophy and Theology. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press. [Link to book]
    • Albertson, D. (2014). Mathematical Theologies: Nicholas of Cusa and the Legacy of Thierry of Chartres. Oxford Studies in Historical Theology. New York: Oxford University Press. [Link to book]
    • Albertson, D., King, C. (2009). Without Nature: A New Condition for Theology. New York: Fordham University Press. [Link to book]

    Book Chapters

    • Albertson, D. (2026). “Secreta sapientiae: Cusanus Among the Women Mystics – Trier Cusanus Lecture 2024,” in Ansichten und Ausblicke. Cusanus-Rezeption und Cusanus-Bilder vom 19. bis zum 21. Jahrhundert. Zeitenwende. Mitteilungen und Forschungsbeiträge der Cusanus-Gesellschaft, N.F., Band 2, ed. Petra Schulte (Köln: Böhlau Verlag).
    • Albertson, D. (2025). “To Defend the Gift,” in Thinking God Otherwise: Introduction to the Work of Emmanuel Falque, trans. Jacob Saliba (Eugene: Wipf & Stock), pp. xvii-xxv. [Link to book]
    • Albertson, D. (2025). “Immanence as Exile: Hadewijch as Philosopher of Finitude,” in Radical Thinking in the Middle Ages: Acts of the XVth International Congress of the SIEPM, Paris, 22–26 August 2022, eds. Monica Brinzei, Irene Caiazzo, Christophe Grellard, and Aurélien Robert (Turnhout: Brepols), 2 vols., Vol 1: pp. 263-273. [Link to book]
    • Albertson, D. (2025). “The Strength to Remain: On the Past and Future of Manence,” in To Die of Not Writing: Doing Philosophy of Religion with Emmanuel Falque, eds. Pablo Irizar, Donald Boyce, and Martin Koci (Eugene: Wipf & Stock), pp. 152-175. [Link to book]
    • Albertson, D. (2025). “Fraternity in Finitude: Emmanuel Falque and the Future of Christian Philosophy,” in To Die of Not Writing: Doing Philosophy of Religion with Emmanuel Falque, eds. Pablo Irizar, Donald Boyce, and Martin Koci (Eugene: Wipf & Stock), pp. 275-290. [Link to book]
    • Albertson, D. (2024). “Inside the Fold: Gilles Deleuze and the Christian Neoplatonist Tradition,” in Mystical Theology and Platonism in the Time of Cusanus: Essays in Honor of Donald F. Duclow, eds. Jason Aleksander, Sean Hannan, Joshua Hollmann, and Michael Edward Moore (Leiden: Brill), pp. 347-383. [Link to book]
    • Albertson, D. (2024). “The Wild Science: Michel de Certeau and Cusan Topology,” in Cusanus Today: Thinking with Nicholas of Cusa Between Philosophy and Theology, ed. David Albertson (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press), pp. 139-167. [Link to book]
    • Albertson, D. (2021). “Entering the Ancient Courts of Ancient Men: On the Unfolding of Leinkauf’s Einleitung,” in Renaissance Philosophy and the Humanists’ Thought: Responses to Thomas Leinkauf’s Die Philosophie des Humanismus und der Renaissance, eds. Andrea Aldo Robiglia and Donald F. Duclow (Cordoba: University of Cordoba Press), pp. 19-35. [Link to book]
    • Albertson, D. (2021). “Latin Christian Neopythagorean Theology: A Speculative Summa,” in Companion to the Reception of Pythagoras and Pythagoreanism in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, eds. Irene Caiazzo, Constantinos Macris, and Aurélien Robert (Leiden: Brill), pp. 373-414. [Link to book]
    • Albertson, D. (2020). “Cataphasis, Visualization, and Mystical Space,” in The Oxford Handbook of Mystical Theology, eds. Edward Howells and Mark A. McIntosh (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), pp. 347-368. [Link to book]
    • Albertson, D. (2019). “Echoes of Eriugena in Renaissance Philosophy: Negation, Theophany, Anthropology,” in A Companion to John Scottus Eriugena, eds. Adrian Guiu and Stephen Lahey (Leiden: Brill, 2019), pp. 387-418. [Link to book]
    • Albertson, D. (2019). “Plötzlichkeit und Schweigen: Nikolaus von Kues im Dialog mit christlichen Neuplatonismus,” in Nikolaus von Kues – Denken im Dialog. Philosophie: Forschung und Wissenschaft, Bd. 30, ed. Walter Andreas Euler (Münster: LIT Verlag, 2019), pp. 9-24. [Link to book]
    • Albertson, D. (2018). “Before the Icon: The Figural Matrix of De visione Dei,” in Nicholas of Cusa and Times of Transition: Essays in Honor of Gerald Christianson, eds. Thomas M. Izbicki, Jason Aleksander, and Donald Duclow (Leiden: Brill, 2018), pp. 262-285. [Link to book]
    • Albertson, D. (2017). “Philosophy and Metaphysics in the School of Saint Victor: From Achard to Godfrey,” in A Companion to the Abbey of Saint Victor in Paris, eds. Hugh Feiss and Juliet Mousseau (Leiden: Brill, 2017), pp. 353-386. [Link to book]
    • Albertson, D. (2016). “The Beauty of the Trinity: Achard of St. Victor as a Forgotten Precursor of Nicholas of Cusa,” in Mitteilungen und Forschungsbeiträge der Cusanus-Gesellschaft, Bd. 34. pp. 3-20. Trier: Paulinus Verlag.
    • Albertson, D. (2014). “De docta ignorantia I-III/Über die belehrte Unwissenheit I–III” and “De genesi/Über den Ursprung,” in Nikolaus von Kues: Leben und Werk. pp. 142-152, 170-174. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. [Link to book]
    • Albertson, D. (2012). “In Search of Unity: Reform and Mathematical Form in the Conciliarist Arguments of Heymeric de Campo’s Disputatio de potestate ecclesiastica (1433),” in Reassessing Reform: An Historical Investigation. pp. 149-169. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press. [Link to book]
    • Albertson, D. (2012). “Gott als Mathematiker. Das Schöpfungsverständnis des Nicolaus Cusanus,” in Der Gottes-Gedanke des Nikolaus von Kues. Mitteilungen und Forschungsbeiträge der Cusanus-Gesellschaft, Bd. 33. pp. 99-122. Trier: Paulinus Verlag.
    • Albertson, D. (2009). “Without Nature?” in Without Nature: A New Condition for Theology. pp. 1-14. New York: Fordham University Press. [Link to book]
    • Albertson, D. (2008). “Mapping the Space of God: Mystical Weltbilder in Nicholas of Cusa and the Structure of De ludo globi (1463),” in Weltbilder im Mittelalter: Perceptions of the World in the Middle Ages. pp. 61-81. Bonn: Bernstein Verlag. [Link to book]

    Journal Article

    • Albertson, D. (2026). “The Limits of Earth: The Question of Finitude in the Young Marx and Two Popes”. Crossing: The INPR Journal. Vol. 4, pp. 217-246. [Link to article]
    • Albertson, D. (2025). “Bernard McGinn’s Modern Mystics” (editor). Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality. Vol. 25 (2), pp. 262-304. [Link to article]
    • Albertson, D. (2019). “Ecce Quadratura! An Early Reader of Thierry of Chartres’s Arithmetica Commentary,” in Ad argumentum: Quaestio’s Special Issues, Supplement Vol. 1. Achard de Saint-Victor métaphysicien: Le De unitate Dei et pluralitate creaturarum, ed. Gilles Olivo: 107-132. [Link to article]
    • Albertson, D. (2016). “Boethius Noster: Thierry of Chartres’s Arithmetica Commentary as a Missing Source of Nicholas of Cusa’s De docta ignorantia“. Recherches de Théologie et Philosophie médiévales. Vol. 83 (1), pp. 143-199. [Link to article]
    • Albertson, D. (2012). “Achard of St. Victor (d. 1171) and the Eclipse of the Arithmetic Model of the Trinity”. Traditio. Vol. 67, pp. 101-144. [Link to article]
    • Albertson, D. (2012). “A Late Medieval Reaction to Thierry of Chartres’s (d. 1157) Philosophy: The Anti-Platonist Argument of the Anonymous Fundamentum Naturae“. Vivarium. Vol. 50 (1), pp. 53-84. [Link to article]
    • Albertson, D. (2010). “Mystical Philosophy in the Fifteenth Century: New Directions in Research on Nicholas of Cusa”. Religion Compass. Vol. 4 (8), pp. 471-485. [Link to article]
    • Albertson, D. (2010). “A Learned Thief? Nicholas of Cusa and the Anonymous Fundamentum Naturae: Reassessing the Vorlage Theory”. Recherches de Théologie et Philosophie Médiévales. Vol. 77 (2), pp. 351-390. [Link to article]
    • Albertson, D. (2006). “‘That He Might Fill All Things’: Creation and Christology in Two Treatises by Nicholas of Cusa”. International Journal of Systematic Theology. Vol. 8 (2), pp. 184-205. [Link to article]
    • Albertson, D. (2005). “On ‘the Gift’ in Tanner’s Theology: A Patristic Parable”. Modern Theology. Vol. 21 (1), pp. 107-118. [Link to article]
    • J. E. & Lillian Byrne Tipton Distinguished Visiting Professor of Catholic Studies, Department of Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, Spring 2025
    • Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship Recipient, 2021-2022
    • NEH Scholarly Editions and Translations Grant, 2016 – 2021
    • USC ASHSS Research Grant, 2020-2021
    • American Council of Learned Societies, Charles A. Ryskamp Research Fellowship, 2015-2016
    • Dibner Research Fellowship in the History of Science and Technology, The Huntington Library, 2012-2013
    • NEH Enduring Questions Grant, 2010-2011
    • USC ASHSS Research Grant, 2008-2009
    • USC General Education Teaching Award, Spring 2009
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