Post-doctoral Research Fellow and Adjunct Professor

Catholic University of Milan

Personal pages: Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore , Academia. 

Contact: paolomaria.maggiolini@unicatt.it

Biography

Paolo Maria Leo Cesare Maggiolini is a Research Fellow and Adjunct Professor in History of Islamic Asia at the Catholic University of Milan (Italy). He also teaches in the Master in Middle Eastern Studies (MIMES) at the Alta Scuola di Economia e Relazioni Internazionali (ASERI). He is an Associate Fellow at the Italian Institute for International Political Studies. He is co-editor with Kamran Matin (University of Sussex) for the Palgrave series “Minorities in West Asia and North Africa” (WANA). His researches are mainly focused on religion and politics in the Middle East and Mediterranean context, with particular concentration on Israel, Iraq, Jordan and Palestine, Arab Christianity in the Middle East, the relationship between religion, national identity and nationalism, and Euro-Mediterranean relations.

Research project

The research aims to reconsider the relationship between modern Middle Eastern states and religious diversity, focusing on the decades between the two World Wars. The research will analyse the cases of Jordan and Iraq reconsidering their state-building processes from the perspective of their local Christian communities, with specific concentration on the role, condition and position of the local Catholic Church and its ecclesiastical institutions, both of Western and Oriental traditions. The inter-war period, characterized by foundation of the modern states and the extension of the Mandate system within the region, offers an important analytical context in which to develop the research. During those decades, local Churches were forced to reposition and re-project their mission and role within the new political field defined by the state and the regime in power. This inevitably also involved religious leaders and their role as mediator between the community and political authorities.

Key words

Minorities, Network, religion and politics, Arab Christianity, tribalism