Olivier Roy
Joint Chair RSCAS, Chair in Mediterranean Studies
Tel. [+39] 055 4685 747/818
/244
Fax [+39] 055 4685 201
Office: SD 019, Convento (1st floor)
Email: Olivier.Roy@eui.eu
Administrative Assistants:
Claudia.Fanti@eui.eu (RSCAS), Tel. [+39] 055 4685 818
Maureen.Lechleitner@eui.eu (SPS), Tel. [+39] 055 4685 244
(for seminars and Ph.D. supervisees)
Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies
European University Institute
Via della Fontanelle 19
50014 San Domenico di Fiesole (FI)
Italy
Office Hours
Thursdays 14:30-16:00. Researchers are advised to send an email.
Olivier Roy (1949) is a Senior Researcher at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (since 1985) and a professor at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (since 2003). He headed the OSCE’s Mission for Tajikistan (1993-94) and was a Consultant for the UN Office of the Coordinator for Afghanistan (1988). His field works include Political Islam, Middle East, Islam in the West and comparative religions.
Prof. Roy received an “Agrégation de Philosophie” and a Ph.D. in Political Sciences. He is the author of “Globalized Islam” (Chicago University Press), 2004, and more recently of “La Sainte Ignorance” (“The Holy Ignorance”, Seuil 2008). In 2008-2009 he has been a visiting Professor at Berkeley University.
He is presently working on “Islamic norms in the public sphere”, conversions and apostasy and comparative religions.
French (fluent), English (good), Persian (good), German (reading), Arabic and Turkish (notions)
Afghanistan, Iran, Middle-East, Central Asia, Christianism, Conversions, Islam, Islamism, Religious Fundamentalism, Civil Society, Religion
Professor Roy is currently involved in two main research projects:
a) "Religion in Public Sphere" (RPS)
The RPS international scholarly network will analyze the call by people of all faiths for greater recognition of religious norms by governments, legislatures, and schools.It is a joint initiative of the Robert Schuman Center. Berkeley Law School and iGov (Berkeley University). It has been made possible thanks to the support of the Partner University Fund, the Carnegie Foundation and the Social Science Research Council.
The RPS international scholarly network will analyze the political impact of the call by people of all faiths for greater recognition of religious norms by governments, legislatures, and schools. The program will approach some of the following issues: How do Western courts or administrative decisions (e.g., appointing Religious chaplains) contribute to shape the notion of “Western Religion?” How do national norms of citizenship and national norms regarding the relationship between religion and the state shape the adoption of different approaches to this issue? How is the integration of religion into public life understood differently across national contexts? Is this understood as a matter of liberty? Of equality? Of some other norm? What is the relationship between religion and culture? How does this relationship vary across the major religious traditions? What is distinctive about religion as a discourse of identity?
Policy makers and the public will greatly benefit from the work of an international and interdisciplinary network of leading scholars who can answer these key questions about Islam in the public sphere and promote research-based policy and public education about this complex and nuanced issue.
b) "ReligioWest" - The (re)construction and formatting of religions in the West through courts, social practices, public discourse and transnational institutions
(In association with Pr Marco Ventura and Pasquale Annicchino from the Faculty of Law of Siena University)
The project aims at studying how the different western states (UE and North America) are redefining their relationship to religions, under the challenge of the increasing religious activism in the public sphere, in particular with new religious movements and Islam Although each country starts from very different and specific contexts of relationship between state, religion and public sphere, this move seems to lead to a more uniform perception of what the relationship would be, and more importantly to the use of a common paradigm of what a religion is, with the consequence of pushing religions, through a complex array of constraints (public order) and incentives (freedom of religion), to format themselves according to this common paradigm.
-
Islam and Resistance in Afghanistan, Cambridge University Press, 1986
-
L'Echec de l'Islam politique, Le Seuil, Paris, 1992, translated as The Failure of Political Islam, Harvard University Press, 1994
-
The New Central Asia, the Creation of Nations, Tauris, 2000
-
Iran : Comment sortir d’une révolution religieuse (avec Farhad Khosrokhavar), Le Seuil 1999
-
L’islam mondialisé, Le Seuil 2002
-
Globalized Islam, Columbia University Press, 2004 (extended version of L’Islam mondialisé) German translation: Der islamische Weg nach Westen. Globalisierung, Entwurzelung und Radikalisierung, Pantheon, 2006.
-
La laïcité face à l’islam, Stock, 2005 (traduit en hollandais, anglais)
-
Le Croissant et le Chaos, Hachette 2007
First Years 2012-2013
CHAUVIN Luc (FR/CH): Le Hip-Hop algérien: de l'équilibre postcolonial en Méditerranée à l'autonomie du "piratage"
HOLMSEN Jenny (NO): From Third-World Champion to Resistant Reformist? A Historical Analysis of Algerian National Identity Constructs from Ben Bella to the Arab Spring
MATLAK Michal (PL): God and the EU: Dangerous Liaisons? The Role of Religion and Secularization in the Process of European Integration 1950 - 2009
NETTERSTRØM Kasper (DK): Why did the Islamists Win? Nahda's Victory in the Election of the Constituent Assembly in Tunisia
Second Years 2011-2012
BEYLUNIOGLOU ATLI Anna Maria (TR): State-Religion Relationship Towards a ‘Cooperative Model’? The Case of Religious Minorities in Turkey
GAROUFAS Christos (GR): Why not to Flirt with Your Own Reflection? A Mirror Effect Between the Others’ Perceptions & the EU’s Quest for Global Actorness – The Case of the IBSA Countries
MUSTONEN Lotta-Liina (FI): Secularism in the Middle East
OBAIDI Milan (DK): An Investigation of Social and Psychological Factors that Contribute to Motivate Muslim Immigrants in Denmark to Support Terrorism
RONSIN Caroline (FR): The Political Role of Tribes in Jordan and Iraq: Evolutions of Tribal Leadership and Electoral Procedures
Third years 2010/11
BIRNBAUM Maria (SE): Theoretically Found, Conceptually Lost. A Conceptual Analysis of Religion
TEDESCO Maria Concetta (IT): Religion and Politics in Modern Turkey: The Case of the 'Erenköy' Community
Fourth years 2009/10
DONKER Teije Hidde (NL): Stability through Fragmentation: Islamic Social Movement Mobilization in Fragmented Middle East Regimes
NORTHEY Jessica (UK): The External Financing of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and the Construction of Civil Society: The Case of Algeria and the EU, 2000-2010