Sabine Schmidtke Elected to the British Academy

Sabine Schmidtke, Professor in the School of Historical Studies, has been elected to the British Academy.

The Academy, which invests in researchers and projects in order to engage society, inspire new thinking, and influence public policy, welcomes Schmidtke to the class of 2023 as a preeminent scholar of Islamic intellectual history. 

Schmidtke’s pioneering research has transformed perspectives on the interrelations and connections among different strands of intellectual inquiry, across time, place, religions, and philosophical schools.

Schmidtke is currently working on the history of Islamic thought in the post-classical period (thirteenth to nineteenth century), with a focus on reconstructing the textual heritage and the intellectual import of the Islamic intellectual world, from Iran and Central Asia to Turkey and Yemen. She is also engaged in a comprehensive study of the Muslim reception of the Bible, a topic on which she has published extensively over the past years.

Additionally, five past scholars were included in the class of 86 Fellows. In the School of Social Science, Sherry Ortner (Member, 1973–74; Visitor, 1989–90), Theda Skocpol (Member, 1980–81), Rahel Jaeggi (Member, 2018–19), and David Owen (Visiting Professor, 2020–21) were inducted. 

Also in the School of Historical Studies, Karl Ubl (Visitor, 2015) has joined the Academy. At IAS, his project explored the relation between systems of punishment and the political order in general, and the practice and conceptualization of guilt, merit, and punishment in the Carolingian empire in particular.

Founded in 1902, the British Academy awards more than €25 million to academics a year. There are currently around 1,400 Fellows who have been elected for their distinction in the humanities and social science.