Dr Ina Merdjanova
Marie Curie Fellow
Ina Merdjanova has scholarly training in religion-related disciplines ranging from the philosophy of religion to Orthodox theology to the sociology of religion. She received her PhD from Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski,” and has held visiting fellowships at Oxford University and other institutions in the UK, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, and the USA. In addition to her academic career, she has published two poetry collections in Bulgarian--Just a Snow Man (1990) and You, Who Are Love (1995)--and holds a degree in literature from the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute in Moscow.
Dr. Merdjanova previously served as director of the Center for Interreligious Dialogue and Conflict Prevention at the Scientific Research Department of Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” (2004-2010). In the framework of this Center, she organized and co-taught some fifteen workshops, both in Bulgaria and in other Southeast European countries, on topics such as “Youth, Interreligious Dialogue and Conflict Resolution,” “Christianity and Islam in the Balkans: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives,” “Women in Christianity and Islam.” In 2005, she received a three-year collaborative grant (with Dr. Patrice Brodeur of Montreal University) from the United States Institute of Peace to research interreligious peacebuilding in the Balkans after the fall of communism.
In 2010, she was awarded a two-year Marie Curie Intra-European Career Development Fellowship at the Irish School of Ecumenics/Trinity College Dublin. During the tenure of this fellowship, she has completed her book on Muslims in the Balkans, cooperated in the design and delivery of three Intensive Erasmus Programs, and developed and taught three courses: “Muslims in the Balkans and the Building of a European Islam,” “Islam and Christianity in Southeast Europe: Contact, Conflict and Cooperation,” and “Religion and Peacebuilding in Southeast Europe.”
Dr. Merdjanova has lectured at different universities and presented papers at various international conferences throughout the world. She is the author of numerous book and journal publications on the role of religion in postcommunist societies, the major of which are the studies 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 (with Patrice Brodeur; Continuum, 2009), and Rediscovering the Umma: Muslims in the Balkans between Nationalism and Transnationalism (forthcoming, Oxford University Press).
Areas of expertise
Religion and Politics in Post-Communist Society, Islam in Southeast Europe, Orthodox Christianity, New Religious Movements, Religion and Peacebuilding, Gender and Religion.
Contact details
Email: merdjand@tcd.ie
Direct Tel: +353 (0) 1 206 0357
General Tel: + 3553 (0) 1 260 1144, ext. 127
Fax: +353 (0) 1 260 1158