About

Dr. Maria Birnbaum is a post-doctoral researcher of swisspeace at the University of Basel and an associate researcher at the Centre for Global Knowledge Studies (gloknos) at Cambridge University, at the Institute for Advanced Studies (IAS) at Princeton and Bern University. Working in the fields of Global Politics, Religious Studies, and Colonial History, her research examines the relationship between diversity and order with a particular focus on religion and global politics, as well as the history and politics of concepts and various regimes of knowledge and ignorance.

She earned her Ph.D. from the European University Institute (EUI) and has held visiting fellowships at Cambridge University - the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH), and the Department of Politics and International Studies (POLIS) – Northwestern University, and Lund University as well as teaching and research positions at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies (RSCAS), Oslo University (UiO), Ludwig-Maximilians Universität (LMU), and the University of Bern, and Graduate Institute, Geneva (IHEID).

Her most recent publications include The Costs of Recognition (International Theory), Entangled Empire (Millennium), and Recognizing Diversity in the edited volume Culture and Order in World Politics, winner of the ISA Theory Section Prize for the Best Edited Book. She is finalizing a book manuscript titled Recognizing Religion. Politics, History, Critique forthcoming with Cambridge University Press.

She is the founder and convener of the interdisciplinary working group GLOREL (Global Epistemological Politics of Religion) at the Centre for Global Knowledge Studies (gloknos), Cambridge University.