Prof. H.L. Murre-van den Berg (Heleen)

Member - Board of Deans
Professor - Comparative religious studies
Dean - Faculty of Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies

Chair: Global Christianity

Contact

heleen.murrevandenberg@ru.nl

Working days Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday

Heleen Murre-van den Berg has published on a variety of topics related to Christians in the Middle East, on Syriac Christians (Syriac, Chaldean, Assyrian) and on exchanges between Western and Middle Eastern Christians. In this, issues of language, scribal practices, literature, identity and nationalism, as well as ritual and religious practices have been her main focus.

Earlier work mostly addressed the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries, recent work mostly concentrates on twentieth-century Christian history. In October 2019, she started a new ERC-funded research project entitled: Rewriting Global Orthodoxy: Oriental Christians in Europe, 1970-2020.

Research theme

religion, language, Middle East, Syriac/Assyrian Christians, minorities, diaspora

Publications

Key publications

Murre-van den Berg, H.L. (2021). Texts, Language, and Religion in the Making of Syriac Orthodox Communities in Europe. In B. Meyer & P. van der Veer (Eds.), Refugees and Religion - Ethnographic Studies of Global Trajectories (pp. 179-197). London: Bloomsbury doi: 10.5040/9781350167162.0019 Full text
Murre-van den Berg, H.L. (2021). The Christians of the Middle East: From Arab Christians to Marginalized Minorities. In R. Meijer, J. Slater & Z. Babar (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of Citizenship in the Middle East and North Africa (pp. 364-377). Abingdon: Routledge doi: 10.4324/9780429058288-30 Full text
Murre-van den Berg, H.L., Sanchez Summerer, K. & Baarda, T.C. (Ed.). (2020). Arabic and its Alternatives: Religious Minorities and their Languages in the Emerging Nation States of the Middle East (1920-1950) (Christians and Jews in Muslim Societies, 5). Leiden/Boston: Brill doi: 10.1163/9789004423220 Full text
Murre-van den Berg, H.L. & Goldstein-Sabbah, S.R. (Ed.). (2016). Modernity, Minority, and the Public Sphere: Jews and Christians in the Middle East (Leiden Studies in Islam and Society, 4). Leiden: Brill doi: 10.1163/9789004323285 Full text
Murre-van den Berg, H.L. (2016). Searching for Common Ground: Jews and Christians in the Modern Middle East. In S.R. Goldstein-Sabbah & H.L. Murre-van den Berg (Eds.), Modernity, Minority, and the Public Sphere: Jews and Christians in the Middle East (pp. 3-38). Leiden: Brill doi: 10.1163/9789004323285_002 Full text
Murre-van den Berg, H.L. (2016). The Language of the Nation: The Rise of Arabic among Jews and Christians (1900–1950). British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 43 (2), 176-190. doi: 10.1080/13530194.2016.1138641 Full text
Murre-van den Berg, H.L. (2015). Scribes and Scriptures: The Church of the East in the Eastern Ottoman Provinces (1500-1850) (Eastern Christian Studies, 21). Louvain: Peeters

Publication lists

Radboud Repository

Research grants and prizes

Projects

Teaching

Curriculum Vitae

Ancillary activities

About

Heleen Murre-van den Berg conducts research on Christians in and from the Middle East. She focuses on their history in this region and the settlement of these Christians in Europe. Language, literature and imagery play an important role in her research into their religious practices.