Before joining MF, Verena Meyer received her PhD and was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Columbia University's Department of Religion. Trained in Islamic Studies and specializing in Islam in the Malay-Indonesian world, her research has focused on the construction of self-consciously pious Islamic identities in Indonesia and their situatedness in transnational intellectual networks, popular culture, and the politics of knowledge of postcolonial Indonesia. She is currently working on her first book project, Future’s Past: The Politics of Memory in Islamic Java, which examines historical memory as a conceptual framework for articulating normative visions and identities for the present and future in different groups of Muslims. In addition to her ethnographic work on contemporary Islam, she has also published on the reception of Arabic philosophical traditions in classical Malay and Javanese literature.
Latest academic publications
- Frydenlund, I. & Larsson, G. & Meyer, V. H. & Skovgaard-Petersen, J. (2024). Reflections on the Special Issue: Burning of the Qur’an, Temenos, Temenos, ISSN: 0497-1817
- Meyer, V. H. (2023). Where is Mecca? Or, map and territory: Reflections from Java, Storied island: New explorations in Javanese literature,, s. 176 - 200. Brill Academic Publishers, ISBN: 978-90-04-54146-7
- Meyer, V. H. (2023). Murdering Mangir: Literature and Memories of Violence in Islamic Java, Philological Encounters (PHEN), Philological Encounters (PHEN), ISSN: 2451-9189
- Meyer, V. H. (2022). More Than Diacritics: Writing, Power, and the Porosity of Script and Language in Java, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, s. 356 - 358. Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, ISSN: 0022-4634
- Meyer, V. H. (2021). A Wali's Quest for Guidance: The Islamic Genealogies of the Seh Mlaya, Wacana - Jurnal Ilmu Penget Ahuan Budaya, Wacana - Jurnal Ilmu Penget Ahuan Budaya, ISSN: 1411-2272
- Meyer, V. H. (2021). Traces of the Other Form of Life: The Rural, the Urban, and Indonesians' Social Mobility in Candra Aditya's Dewi Pulang, Bijdragen Tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, Bijdragen Tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, ISSN: 0006-2294
- Meyer, V. H. (2020). From Taṣawwuf Modern to Neo-Sufism: Nurcholish Madjid, Fazlur Rahman, and the Development of an Idea, Modern Sufis and the State: The Politics of Islam in South Asia and Beyond,, s. 40 - 56. Columbia University Press, ISBN: 9780231195751
- Meyer, V. H. (2019). Translating Divinity: Punning and Paradox in Hamzah Fansuri's Poetic Sufism, Indonesia and the Malay World, Indonesia and the Malay World, ISSN: 1363-9811
Education and practice
2022
Postdoctoral Fellow at MF Norwegian School of Theology, Religion and Society
2021 - 2022
Early Career Postdoctoral Fellow, Columbia University
2015 - 2021
Ph.D. in Religious Studies/Islamic Studies, Columbia University
2011 - 2012
M.St. (Distinction) in the Study of Religion, University of Oxford
Voluntary position
2022 - 2027
Steering Committee, Religion in Southeast Asia Unit, American Academy of Religion