Women and Religiosity in Orthodox Christianity: A Conversation with Ina Merdjanova

The Orthodox Christian Studies Center at Fordham University is delighted to present the next episode of its webinar series highlighting the scholarly insights and academic careers of female scholars whose research and writing explore some facet of the history, thought, or culture of Orthodox Christianity. The broadcast will be livestreamed and open to all who have pre-registered. The event will include some time for live audience questions. For those who miss the live event, the center will archive each episode on its website and YouTube channel.

This episode features an interview with Ina Merdjanova, a senior researcher at the Irish School of Ecumenics, Trinity College Dublin. Her research has focused on the intersection of society, religious and cultural pluralism, nationalism, minorities, gender, conflict, and peace-building, with particular reference to Eastern Europe and Turkey. She has extensive academic experience at various academic and research institutions: 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, D.C., the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences, the Aleksanteri Institute at Helsinki University, and the Freiburg Center for Advanced Studies, among others. Her book publications include Eschatological Anthropodicy: the Human Person and History in Contemporary Eastern Orthodox Thought (Praxis Publishing House, 2000, in Bulgarian), 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), and a recent edited volume titled Women and Religiosity in Orthodox Christianity (Fordham University Press, 2021).