Elizabeth Shakman Hurd
Elizabeth Shakman Hurd teaches and writes on the politics of religious diversity, the intersection of law and religion, the history and politics of US foreign relations, and the international relations of the Middle East, including Turkey and Iran. She is the author of The Politics of Secularism in International Relations (Princeton, 2008), which won an APSA award for the best book in religion and politics (2008-2010) and co-editor of Comparative Secularisms in a Global Age (Palgrave, 2010). Recent publications include “International politics after secularism” in Review of International Studies (2012) and “Contested secularisms in Turkey and Iran” in Contesting Secularism: Comparative Perspectives (Ashgate, 2013). Hurd is currently writing a book on the “strategic operationalization” of religion in international affairs and its implications for religion, law and public policy.
Hurd is co-organizer of “The Politics of Religious Freedom: Contested Norms and Local Practices,” a 3-year research project funded by the Luce Foundation which examines the histories and politics of religious freedom. She has consulted on a range of academic, media, and foundation projects involving religion and world affairs, and recently guest edited a series on the politics of religious freedom on The Immanent Frame in 2012-13. Her opinion pieces have appeared in The Boston Review, Public Culture, The Atlantic, Chicago Tribune, Globe and Mail, and The Huffington Post.
Details about current research and a CV are available on the research page. Information on courses taught and syllabi are available on the teaching page. Or visit her academia.edu page.
At Northwestern, Hurd directs a new graduate certificate program in Religion and Global Politics and is a core faculty member of the Program in Middle East and North African Studies, which has a graduate cluster and Ph.D. certificate and a new undergraduate major. She teaches graduate and undergraduate courses on America and the world, religion and global politics, the politics of religious freedom, the Middle East in international politics, and law and religion in cross-cultural and cross-national perspective.
Hurd received her Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, her M.A. in International Relations from Yale, and her B.A. in Government from Wesleyan University. She is Director of Graduate Studies in Political Science at Northwestern.
