Profile

Professional career

• since 01/2026
  Principal investigator longterm project Alevi Archive: Ethnohistory of Alevi Communities in Anatolia, 16th to 20th Centuries at the Saxon Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Leipzig
• since 03/2021
  Professor for Modern Turkish Studies at the Institute for the Study of Religions at Leipzig University (until 11/2024 as Heisenberg-Professor)
• 12/2019 - 02/2021
  Assistant Professor, Heisenberg Scholar (DFG Heisenberg Program), Institute for the Study of Religions, Leipzig University
• 04/2016 - 11/2019
  Senior Researcher, DFG Humanities Center "Multiple Secularities - Beyond the West, Beyond Modernities", Leipzig University
• 09/2016 - 12/2017
  Visiting Professor for Sociology, University of St. Gallen
• 04/2016 - 08/2016
  Visiting Professor, Historisches Seminar, University of Zurich
• 04/2015 - 03/2016
  Visiting Researcher, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Göttingen
• 10/2015 - 03/2016
  Assistant Professor, Institute for the Study of Religion, University of Bayreuth
• 04/2015 - 09/2015
  Visiting Chair, Institute for the Study of Religion, University of Bayreuth
• 10/2014 - 03/2015
  Visiting Professor, Social Scientific Study of Religion, Cultural Sociology, University of Göttingen
• 09/2013 - 09/2014
  Assistant Professor, Religious Studies Department, University of Bayreuth
• 09/2011 - 12/2013
  Visiting Professor for Sociology, University of St. Gallen
• 11/2011 - 08/2013
  Associate Professor, Social Sciences and Humanities Department, Istanbul Technical University
• 06/2010 - 07/2010
  Visiting Assistant Professor, Turkology, Free University Berlin, ERASMUS Faculty Exchange Program (June-July)
• 06/2010 - 07/2010
  Research Fellow, Zentrum Moderner Orient Berlin (June-July)
• 11/2008 - 11/2011
  Assistant Professor, Social Sciences and Humanities Department, Istanbul Technical University
• 09/2008 - 03/2009
  Senior Fellow in Residence, Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations, Koç University, Istanbul
• 02/2005 - 12/2008
  Assistant Professor (tenure track), Religion Department, Hofstra University
• 09/2007 - 02/2008
  Research Fellow, American Research Institute in Turkey ARIT, Istanbul
• 02/2004 - 06/2004
  Visiting Adjunct Professor, Department for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, New York University
• 07/2003 - 12/2003
  Visiting Assistant Professor, Religion Department, Oberlin College
• 02/2003 - 06/2003
  Visiting Adjunct Professor, Religious Studies Program, New York University
• 11/2001 - 05/2002
  Visiting Scholar, Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies, New York University
• 05/2001 - 10/2001
  Visiting Scholar, Orient Institute, Istanbul

Education

• 12/2013 - 10/2014
  Habilitation in religious studies, University of Bayreuth
• 11/2010 - 11/2011
  Doçentlik (Turkish equivalent to habilitation) in sociology, YÖK (Turkey)
• 04/1998 - 03/2001
  Doctorate in religious studies, Max Weber College for Cultural and Social Studies, University of Erfurt
• 04/1992 - 08/1997
  M.A. Religious Studies and Islamic Studies, Universities of Marburg and Gießen

The focus of my research is on

• history and historiography of religion, with special emphasis on Turkish religious history,
• the tension between religion, state and politics in a historical perspective, with a focus on the late Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Turkey,
• secularization and secularism studies,
• general theoretical and methodological questions in the study of religion and Islam,
• religious minorities and minority discourses in the Middle East,
• issues concerning intra- and intra-religious difference,
• and Alevism.

My current reserarch focuses on the ethnohistory of the Alevis especially of Turkey up to the present.

• Modern Turkish Studies/Turkology with Emphasis on Cultural Studies

  Dreßler, Markus

  Duration: 12/2022 – 05/2025

  Funded by: DFG Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft

  Involved organisational units of Leipzig University: Moderne Türkeiforschung
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• Negotiating Modern Sino-Muslim (Hui) Subjectives, 1900-1960: Reforming Islam in China

  Dreßler, Markus

  Duration: 04/2022 – 09/2025

  Funded by: DFG Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft

  Involved organisational units of Leipzig University: Moderne Türkeiforschung; FOR 2344: Kolleg-Forschergruppe - Multiple Secularities - beyond the West, beyond Modernities
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• Piety and Secularity Contested: Family and Youth Politics in post-Kemalist "New Turkey"

  Dreßler, Markus

  Duration: 04/2021 – 07/2026

  Funded by: DFG Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft

  Involved organisational units of Leipzig University: Religionswissenschaftliches Institut; Moderne Türkeiforschung
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• Modern Turkish Studies/ Turkology with Cultural Studies Focus

  Dreßler, Markus

  Duration: 11/2019 – ongoing

  Funded by: DFG Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft

  Involved organisational units of Leipzig University: Religionsgeschichte; Moderne Türkeiforschung
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• Centre for Advanced Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences "Multiple Secularities - Beyond the West, Beyond Modernities"

  Wohlrab-Sahr, Monika

  Duration: 04/2016 – 03/2024

  Funded by: DFG Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft

  Involved organisational units of Leipzig University: Centre for the Study of Religion; Religionswissenschaftliches Institut; Religionsgeschichte; Kultursoziologie; Leipzig Research Centre Global Dynamics (ReCentGlobe); FOR 2344: Kolleg-Forschergruppe - Multiple Secularities - beyond the West, beyond Modernities
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more projects

• Dreßler, M.

  The Social Construction of Reality (1966) Revisited: Epistemology and Theorizing in the Study of Religion

  Method & theory in the study of religion. 2019. 31 (2). pp. 120–151.

  DOI: 10.1163/15700682-12341434
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• Dreßler, M.

  Tracing the Nationalisation of Millet in the Late Ottoman Period: A Conceptual History Approach

  Die Welt des Islams. 2022. 62 (3-4). pp. 360–388.

  DOI: 10.1163/15700607-62030006
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• Dreßler, M.

  What is Alevism? Contemporary Debates vis-à-vis Historical and Systematic Considerations

  The Alevis in modern Turkey and the diaspora. Recognition, mobilisation and transformation.. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press . 2022. pp. 17–44.

  ISBN: 9781474492027
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• Dreßler, M.

  Physical and Epistemic Violence against Alevis in Modern Turkey

  In: Kevorkian, R.; Astourian, St. (Eds.)

  Collective and State Violence in Turkey. The Construction of a National Identity from Empire to Nation-State.. New York: Berghahn. 2021. pp. 347–371.
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• Dreßler, M.

  Modes of Religionization: A Constructivist Approach to Secularity

  2019.
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more publications

• Keynote lecture: Religion-Making und Religionisierung

  Dreßler, Markus (Moderne Türkeiforschung)

  awarded in 2023 by Deutsche Vereinigung für Religionswissenschaft.
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more awards

• Religionswissenschaftliches Institut; FOR 2344: Kolleg-Forschergruppe - Multiple Secularities - beyond the West, beyond Modernities

  GOVMAT: The Governmentality of Indigenous Religion

  Start Date of Collaboration: 01/08/2020

  External participating organisations: Tromso University (Tromso)

  Involved persons: Dreßler, Markus
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more cooperations

In addition to full-time positions in Religious Studies (Oberlin College, Hofstra University, University of Bayreuth) and Sociology (Technical University of Istanbul, University of Göttingen), I taught within Islamic Studies, Turkology, Political Science and History contexts.

At Leipzig University, I teach at the Institute for the Study of Religion and at the Graduate School for Global and Area Studies. I supervise bachelor's, master's, and doctoral theses in the fields of religious and Islamic studies, as well as modern Turkish studies.