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Benjamin Soares

Contact Information

Office: 107B Anderson Hall/472a Grinter Hall

Professor

  • Islam and Muslim societies, religion & politics, religion & media, religious encounters, Africa and the Diaspora

PhD, Northwestern University

Benjamin Soares is a scholar of Islam and Muslim societies in Africa whose research focuses particularly on religious life from the early 20th century to the present. He has conducted research in Mali, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal, and Sudan, as well as among West African Muslims in Europe and Asia. In recent work, he has looked at the connections between changing modalities of religious expression, different modes of belonging, and emergent social imaginaries in colonial and postcolonial West Africa. In addition to ongoing interests in religious encounters and religion, media, and the public sphere, he is studying contemporary Muslim public intellectuals in Africa.

A former editor of Africa, the journal of the International African Institute (London), he also previously co-edited the International African Library book series (Cambridge) and Studies of Religion in Africa (Brill).

Books

Recent articles/book chapters