Prof. Dr. Judith Pfeiffer

Judith Pfeiffer focuses on the Islamicate intellectual history of the late medieval and early modern periods, paying particular attention to historiography, social, intellectual and religious networks, and the circulation of knowledge in the wake of the conversion of the formerly Buddhist Mongol rulers to Islam at the turn of the fourteenth century. This knowledge ushered in a long period of experimentation in the Nile-to-Oxus Region (the predominantly Muslim Middle East). It is during this period that we witness the establishment of informal intellectual networks and the institutionalization of more formal socio-religious networks (‘Sufi monastic orders’), as well as the gradual integration of the learned classes into state apparatuses. Dependencies in this context are ubiquitous, and include student-teacher-relationships in the field of traditional learning, master and disciple relationships with the full range of rites of initiation in Sufism [‘mysticism’] and relationships of patronage that are often explicitly discussed as unwanted in the primary sources.

1 book, 4 edited volumes, 10 articles. 7 completed and 4 ongoing doctorates as well as numerous Master (M.Phil. and M.St.) and Bachelor theses as supervisor/dissertation committee member.

1998–2003
Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago, USA

1998–2000
Doctoral Scholarship at the German Oriental Institute Istanbul, Turkey

1994–1998
M.A. in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago, USA

1983–1992
M.A. in Romance, German and Oriental Philologies, Islamic Studies and Pedagogy at University of Cologne, Germany

since 2016
Alexander von Humboldt-Professor for Islamic Studies, University of Bonn, Germany

2003–2016
University Lecturer in Arabic and Islamic History and Associate Professor of Arabic and Islamic History at the Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford, UK

2002–2003
Instructor at the Department of Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations, University of Chicago, USA

2013
Member of the editorial board of the "Miroir de l'Orient Musulman" series (MOM) and of "Oriens"

2012
Co-editor of the series "Islamicate Intellectual History – Studies and Texts"

2009

• Co-editor of the "Journal of Islamic Manuscripts"
• Collaboration with international research groups such as "Repenser la normativité en Islam post-mongol: courants ésotériques, syncrétistes et messianiques," CNRS, Paris, France, Soros Foundation "ReSET" Project on the Conception of "Eternal Capitals," Oxford-Tbilisi

• ERC Starting Grant (2010–2016)
• Alexander von Humboldt Professorship – International Prize for Research in Germany (University of Bonn, Forscherkolleg "Islamicate Intellectual History") (2016–2021)
• Numerous awards and individual scholarships

Total sum of approximately € 5.5 million ad personam.