Ina Merdjanova, PhD

Senior Research Fellow, Irish School of Ecumenics, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland

Ina Merdjanova is a Senior Researcher at the Irish School of Ecumenics, Trinity College Dublin, and a former Visiting Professor at the Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations (2018-2021). She has held visiting research fellowships at Oxford University, New York University, the Center for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at Edinburgh University, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington DC, the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences, the Aleksanteri Institute at Helsinki University, the Freiburg Center for Advanced Studies, and, most recently, the Leipzig University’s KFG “Multiple Secularities” and the French Institute for Advanced Studies in Marseille.

Ina Merdjanova is the author of four major monographs, one textbook, and over thirty peer-reviewed articles, and have edited four essay collections. Her research has brought invitations to deliver international keynote lectures, participate in numerous conferences and lead expert seminars.

Statement of interest:

Ina Merdjanova works across the disciplines of sociology, peace studies, gender studies, religious studies, politics and anthropology. Her research has focused on the intersection of society, religious and cultural pluralism, nationalism, gender, conflict and peace building, with particular reference to post-1989 developments in Southeast Europe and Turkey.

Selected Publications:

• Religion, Nationalism, and Civil Society in Eastern Europe—the Postcommunist Palimpsest (Edwin Mellen Press, 2002)
• Religion as a Conversation Starter: Interreligious Dialogue for Peacebuilding in the Balkans (Continuum, 2009, with Patrice Brodeur)
• Rediscovering the Umma: Muslims in the Balkans between Nationalism and Transnationalism (Oxford University Press, 2013)
• An edited volume Women and Religiosity in Orthodox Christianity (Fordham University Press, 2021).