Dr. Björn Bentlage Assistant Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies Fachbereich Mittlerer Osten und muslimische Gesellschaften E-Mail bjoern.bentlage@unibe.ch Postal Address University of Bern Department of Social Anthropology and Cultural Studies SACS Lerchenweg 36 3012 Bern Consultation Hour by arrangement via email
Academic career Lecturer for Near Eastern Studies at the University of Bern & associate of the research group "Arabic Mass Media and (trans-)regional Digital Cultures" at Munich's Institute for Near and Middle Eastern Studies (LMU). Post-doc researcher and lecturer at LMU's Institute for Near and Middle Eastern Studies (April 2023 to September 2024). Interim professor for Arabic and Islamic Studies at Leipzig University (April 2022 to March 2023) Member of the School of Historical Studies at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study (2020). Interim professor at Münster University (Islamic Law and Islamic Studies, 2020). Pre-doc (2010-2016) and post-doc researcher and lecturer (2016-2022) at Halle University’s Oriental Institute (Arabic and Islamic Studies, Near Eastern Studies).
Research interests Pre- and early-modern Arabic literature, especially travel writing among Arab Christians and Muslims in the Ottoman Mashreq (habilitation). Islamic law and state laws in Egypt and the modern world at large (dissertation). Comparative perspectives on culture, religion, and society in the Middle East and North Africa in the modern and post-colonial periods, namely the approaches of entanglement (sourcebook) and World Literature. The multi-confessional history of the Islamicate Middle East and North Africa.
Current research "Pilgrimage and visitation in Arabic travelogues from the Ottoman Mashreq" - my recently completed habilitation thesis about Arabic travel writing in the early modern Mashreq (880s-1250/1480-1730s). "Printing Communities" - ongoing publication project (co-editing a special issue forthcoming 2025 with Katrin Köster and Yee Lak Elliot Lee) in association with the research group "Arabic Mass Media and (trans-)regional Digital Cultures" at the Institute for the Near and Middle East at Munich University (LMU). "A Tale of Two Stories: Customary Marriage and Paternity. A Discourse Analysis of a Scandal in Egypt." Islamkundliche Untersuchungen 333. Berlin: Klaus-Schwarz-Verlag, 2017 print; Berlin: De Gruyter, 2020 online, 337 pages. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783112209332. Religious Dynamics under the Impact of Imperialism and Colonialism: A Sourcebook, edited by Björn Bentlage, Marion Eggert, Hans Martin Krämer, and Stefan Reichmuth, Numen Book Series 154. Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2016, 566 pages. https://brill.com/view/title/33664.
