Carlos Fraenkel

Carlos Fraenkel, born March 21, 1971, in Münster, Germany, is a German-Brazilian scholar and writer. He currently holds the position of James McGill Professor of Philosophy and Religion at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. Prior to this, he was a Professor of Comparative Religion and Philosophy at Oxford University. Fraenkel's parents relocated to Germany in 1970, seeking refuge from the military dictatorship in Brazil. His paternal grandparents were German Jews who had fled Nazi Germany and subsequently settled in São Paulo. His maternal grandfather was Joaquim Câmara Ferreira, a prominent figure in Brazil's Communist Party and a leader of the armed resistance against the country's military dictatorship in the 1960s. Fraenkel earned his Ph.D. in 2000, graduating summa cum laude, from the Freie Universität Berlin and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He has also held visiting professorships at various institutions, including Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich, the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris, and the State Islamic University in Makassar, Indonesia. Fraenkel's scholarly work encompasses ancient, medieval, and early modern philosophy, as well as Jewish, Islamic, and political thought. His research interests include seminal figures like Plato, Themistius, al-Fārābī, al-Ghazālī, Maimonides, and Spinoza. He is also known for engaging in philosophical discussions in diverse and often challenging contexts, such as with Palestinian students, former Hasidic Jews, and members of a Native American community. Furthermore, Fraenkel has made contributions to the discourse on religious and cultural diversity.