Torsten Janson has joined us as a visiting scholar

Torsten will be with us in Izmir until May 10 and will take part in two academic events during his stay. On May 2, he will serve as a discussant—alongside Dr. Ümit Kurt from the University of Newcastle in Australia—at our Graduate Colloquium on Memory Politics. In his final week, Torsten will also deliver a talk as part of our departmental seminar series. We’re excited to welcome him and look forward to the discussions and exchanges his visit will bring. You can find a short bio below.

Torsten Janson is senior lecturer of History of Religion at the Centre for Theology and Religious Studies, Lund University, and affiliated with the Advanced Centre for Middle Eastern Studies. His research focuses on Islam and the politics of religion, religious cultural production, migrant identity, and national memory. He has worked on religious education and child culture among Muslim migrant communities; Palestinian youth in Lebanon; and the role of religion in nationalist imaginaries in Turkey, Palestine, and Israel. He is currently leading the multidisciplinary project Beyond Sacred/Secular Cities: Exploring the Politics of Memory, Space, and Religion, probing the religious/secularist national memory in Istanbul, Izmir, Jersualem, and Tel Aviv-Jaffa, with a particular focus on museums, monuments, local-national celebrations, and urban public space.