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Doctoral Student in Anthropology & History
nsmolens@umich.edu
I am investigating the phenomenon of sainthood as it occurs in Catholicism and Islam, with a particular focus on 20th century saints in Poland and the Arabic countries of the Eastern Mediterranean. I am interested in the experience of sanctity from a phenomenological perspective as well as how that experience, and the saints who embody it, speak to conceptions of "Christian" and "Islamic" civilization and the sociopolitical connotations thereof. I take both an ethnographic and a deep historical approach to this question, investigating contemporary saints' cults as well as engaging in a study of the origins, medieval development, and modern transformations of Christianity and Islam.
