The Shiʿi Studies Network is excited to announce a new lecture series, Reflections on Shiʿi Studies. The series aims to act as a forum for scholars working on the academic study of Shiʿi Islam to reflect on the state and fate of the field. Over the past few decades, scholarship on Shiʿism has grown significantly, with major contributions reshaping our understanding of the history and development of Shiʿi Islam from its emergence until the present day. However, dominant analytical frameworks still often reflect reductive assumptions, shaped by sectarian or minority-status framings. This series brings together leading scholars to critically reflect on these dynamics, share insights from their respective areas of focus, and propose new methodological and conceptual approaches to move the field forward.
Join us for the next instalment of this ongoing lecture series where we will be joined by Toby Matthiesen, Senior Lecturer in Global Religious Studies at the University of Bristol.
The lecture will be held online over Zoom. To join, please register here and you will receive a link to join. You will need to register to attend the lecture. For those having difficulty registering with their institutional accounts, please use your personal email address to register instead. If you are still having difficulties, please get in touch.
Toby Matthiesen
Senior Lecturer in Global Religious Studies
University of Bristol
Toby Matthiesen is Senior Lecturer in Global Religious Studies at the University of Bristol. He has held academic positions at the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge and the LSE and has been a Marie Curie Global Fellow at Ca’ Foscari University and Stanford University. He is the author of Sectarian Gulf: Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the Arab Spring That Wasn’t (Stanford University Press, 2013) and The Other Saudis: Shiism, Dissent and Sectarianism (Cambridge University Press, 2015). The Caliph and the Imam: The Making of Sunnism and Shiism, a global and longue durée history of Sunni-Shii relations, was published by Oxford University Press in 2023. His current research interests relate to the role of religion in international affairs and the history of the Gulf.