Academic Interests
I have pluridisciplinary background with specialization in Religious History, Islamic Studies and Comparative Literature. My research focuses on different aspects of religious- and cultural encounters between Muslims and Christians, spanning from conversions and mixed marriages in medieval Iberia, via the hammam as a cite of cultural encounters in 19th century travel writing, to literary descriptions of immigrant workers in Paris in the 20th century. In the research project Tracing the Jerusalem Code: Christian Cultures in Scandinavia I analyzed 19th century Scandinavian descriptions of the Holy Land while I currently explore fiction and rap music as a sources for studying Islam in Europe. I have also worked on divergent value discourses in Tunisian politics after 2011.
Teaching and Tutoring
- REL2250 – Islam
- REL3050 – Islam i Europa
- REL4000 – Prosjektbeskrivelse: tema, teori og metode i studiet av religion – Universitetet i Oslo (uio.no)
- REL4000 – Prosjektbeskrivelse: tema, teori og metode i studiet av religion – Universitetet i Oslo (uio.no)
Higher Education and Employment History
I joined the academic staff of the Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages in August 2013.
From 2011-2013, I was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Department of Literature, Area Studies and European Languages at the University of Oslo. The period included a one year research stay in Tunisia.
I hold a PhD degree in religious history from the University of Oslo (2007) and followed PhD-studies in Comparative Literature and Islamic Studies at the University of Montreal and McGill University, Canada. In my PhD-thesis, I analyzed Christian and Muslim legal texts from Medieval Iberia on conversions and mixed marriages in light of postcolonial theories. I am a Cand. Philol. from the University of Oslo with a Master in French/Francophone literature and a Bachelor in North African and Middle Eastern Studies, Philosophy and French, including one semester at l’Université Libre de Bruxelles. I addition, I hold a Masters Degree in Contemporary Literature from the University of Paris XIII.
From 2008-2010, I was a lecturer at the University of Oslo, Oslo University College and Volda University College, teaching courses in religious history, the epistemology of science, and the history of medieval Spain.
I have received scholarships from the Norwegian Research Council, the University of Oslo, and The Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Books
