He received his Ph.D. in systematic theology from Boston College in 2003. His first monograph, Answering the Enlightenment: The Catholic Recovery of Historical Revelation (Crossroad, 2006), examines the German Enlightenment’s critique of revelation and the Catholic response to this critique. His second monograph, René Girard, Unlikely Apologist (Notre Dame, 2016) focuses on bringing mimetic theory into conversation with fundamental theology. In addition to mimetic theory, Dr. Kaplan centers his research around modern Christian theology, with an emphasis on 19th century German Catholicism. He is currently writing a book on the relationship between faith and reason in the Christian tradition. He has received external grants from the Fulbright Association, the DAAD, the Peter Thiel Foundation, and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. He and his wife are raising their two boys in Saint Louis.