Ricarda Stegmann is a new Marie Curie postdoc in the Department for the Study of Religion.

Ricarda graduated in the Study of Religions and Literature and received her PhD in 2015 from the Institute of the Study of Religions at Heidelberg University with a thesis on: “Entangled Identities. The Grand Mosque of Paris between Algeria and France,” which was awarded the Ruprecht-Karl’s Prize of Heidelberg University in 2016. Between 2011 and 2021, she worked as a lecturer within the Study of Religions at Fribourg University, as a lecturer at Swiss Distance Teaching University and as a researcher at the Swiss Center for Islam and Society, where she conducted a study on the reception of Islamic inheritance law among Muslims in Switzerland together with Dr. Mallory Schneuwly and participated in the development of the website islamandsociety.ch.

In her doctoral thesis, Ricarda investigated the impact of colonial and postcolonial discourses on contemporary politics and identity constructions among Muslims in France and particularly at the Grand Mosque of Paris. In her new project on “Contemporary Sufi spirituality of the middle classes: Global forms and regional peculiarities,” she will analyze religious concepts, forms of institutionalization and dissemination strategies of new Sufi spirituality in Europe, North Africa and Indonesia by evaluating selected authors and their followers.