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Elizabeth Shakman Hurd

Professor of Politics and Religious Studies, Northwestern University

Elizabeth Shakman Hurd is Professor of Politics and Religion at Northwestern. She studies religion and state in comparative perspective, U.S. foreign relations, and relations between the U.S. and the Middle East. Her research focuses on dilemmas of national and international governance involving difference, equality, religion, law, and exceptionalism. She is the author of two books, The Politics of Secularism in International Relations and Beyond Religious Freedom: The New Global Politics of Religion, both published by Princeton, and co-editor of Politics of Religious Freedom and Comparative Secularisms in a Global Age. She currently co-directs two research projects: “Politics of Religion at Home and Abroad” and “Talking Religion: Publics, Politics, and the Media.” At Northwestern Hurd received a “Big Ideas” grant to create the Buffett Faculty Research Group on Global Politics & Religion, and is a core faculty member of the MENA Program. She is co-curator of the Teaching Law & Religion Case Study Archive. She contributes regularly to public discussions on US foreign policy, religious diversity and the politics of the Middle East, and consults on academic, media, and foundation projects involving religion and international affairs and the global politics of the Middle East. Her public writings have appeared in Boston Review, Public Culture, The Atlantic, Chicago Tribune, Foreign Policy, Globe and Mail, and The Washington Post.

Experience

  • –present
    Associate Professor of Political Science, Northwestern University