Nathan French

Nathan S. French is an Associate Professor in Comparative Religion at Miami University in Oxford, OH. He is also an affiliate in International Studies in the Department of Global and Intercultural Studies and an affiliate with the LIFE Research Lab in the John W. Altman Institute for Entrepreneurship's Center for Social Entrepreneurship. He completed his PhD in Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2013.

French's research interests closely parallel his teaching interests. His research background is in Islamic law, Islamic legal theory, Islamic theology, and contemporary Middle East history. Within these, Dr. French's research explores how contemporary Jihadi-Salafi movements, such as al-Qa'ida and ISIS, appropriate and re-interpret Islamic law and theology for their sociopolitical projects.

He is the author of one monograph, And God Knows the Martyrs: Theodicy, Violence, and Asceticism in Jihadi-Salafism. His work has appeared in Religion Dispatches and the Journal of Religion and Violence.