Birgit Meyer installed as member of the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften

Prof. dr. Birgit Meyer. Foto: Ed van Rijswijk
Prof. Birgit Meyer. Photo: Ed van Rijswijk

On 3 June, Professor of Religious Studies Birgit Meyer was installed in Berlin as a member of the 'Geisteswissenschaftliche Klasse' of the . With the installation, the BBAW expresses its appreciation for Meyer's contribution to religious anthropological research on the changing role of religion in our time.

Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften

More than three hundred years ago, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz founded the Kurf眉rstlich Brandenburgische Soziet盲t der Wissenschaften. After the Wiedervereinigung in 1992, the society was reconstituted, this time as the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften.

The BBAW cooperates with scholars from all over the world and its mission is to promote synergies between the natural sciences and the humanities. The society considers itself to be a 'working academy' and houses all kinds of research projects and interdisciplinary working groups that contribute to scientifically and socially relevant issues.

Birgit Meyer elected as new member

New BBAW members are nominated and confirmed by the council and general members' assembly. Meyer was elected on the basis of her pioneering research with a regard to a modern anthropology of religion. Her work on missions in colonial Africa, Pentecostal churches and modernity, and the material dimension of religion is praised.

For Meyer, the membership is a recognition of her research on religion from a global, material and post-secular perspective. "It's truly wonderful that my work is also noticed and appreciated in Germany," Meyer says in a comment. "I moved to the Netherlands from Germany in 1985 and have been able to develop fantastically here, and I see all kinds of opportunities to build bridges between the academic work in both countries."

Meyer is a member of the KNAW since 2007 and in 2015 she received the NWO's Spinoza Prize and the KNAW's Academy Professor award. With her interdisciplinary scientific research, she aims to contribute to a better understanding of our world at the beginning of the 21st century.