Rate My Professor Paula Schrode

Prof. Dr. Paula Schrode is Professor for the Study of Religion with a focus on contemporary Islam at the University of Bayreuth, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. She has served as Dean of the faculty since the winter semester 2024/25, previously as Vice Dean from summer semester 2021 to summer semester 2024. Schrode obtained her PhD in Islamic Studies from the University of Heidelberg in 2010 with a dissertation on Sunni Islamic discourses on halal food. She earned her M.A. in Turcology, Study of Religion, and Social and Cultural Anthropology from the Free University of Berlin in 2005, with a thesis on beliefs in spirits of the dead among Uyghurs in Xinjiang, People's Republic of China. Her career includes research associate positions at Heidelberg University's Collaborative Research Centre 619 'Ritual Dynamics' from 2006 to 2013, where she worked on projects concerning ritual purity in Islam and religious practice and ritual community among Sunni Muslims in Germany, including studies on the festival of sacrifice in Germany and Turkey. She substituted for the Bayreuth professorship in the winter semester 2012/2013 before assuming the permanent position in March 2013. Schrode has conducted field research in Turkey and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

Her research specializations include Islam in Germany, Turkey, and Central Asia, transnational dimensions of Turkish Islam, religious societal models and projects of transformation, and ritual practices in Islam. Schrode holds memberships in the German Association for the Study of Religion (DVRW), German Middle East Studies Association (DAVO), and Society for Turkic, Ottoman, and Turkish Studies (GTOT). She served as Deputy Chair of the DVRW from 2017 to 2021, Women's Representative of the Faculty from 2017 to 2019, and is a member of the Faculty Council and Doctoral Committee. Key publications encompass the co-edited volume Conceptualizing Islam: Current Approaches (Routledge, 2025), the introduction and chapter therein; the special issue Religious Engineering co-edited with Eva Spies (Religion, 2021); 'Religious engineering: exploring projects of transformation from a relational perspective' (Religion, 2021, with Eva Spies); 'Between critics and caretakers: current introductions to Islam' (Religion, 2016); and contributions to lexicons such as Lexikon für Kirchen- und Religionsrecht on topics including Islamic popular piety, slaughtering, and symbols.