About
Dr Tobias Müller is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, co-funded by the Isaac Newton Trust, at CRASSH, where he leads the project ‘Democratic futures: Climate change, coloniality and state legitimacy’. Previously, he held research and teaching positions at The New Institute, Hamburg, Oxford University, Yale University, Leiden University, the Woolf Institute and the University of Cambridge, where he received his PhD in Politics and International Studies. His work has been funded by The New Institute Foundation, the European Research Council, the DAAD, the Cambridge Trust and the German Academic Scholarship Foundation. He has published various op-eds, including in Nature.
Research
Tobias’ research interests include political and social theory, the politics of climate change, secularism and Islam in Europe, and decolonial and feminist theory. His current project investigates the political visions and strategies of the climate movement, and how these offer new pathways to think about politics. Taking activists seriously as political thinkers, he uses ethnographic methods to understand how new democratic practices and theories emerge at the frontlines of climate justice struggles. Working with interlocutors in Extinction Rebellion across various sites, including in the UK, Uganda, Kenya, the US and South Africa, he explores the epistemic, spiritual, intersectional, decolonial and reparationist dimensions of planetary politics.
Selected publications
Articles:
- (forthcoming) “Patriarchal ‘Love School’: Entrepreneurial heroic masculinity and neoliberalism in a Pentecostal Church in London, in American Behavioral Scientist.
- (forthcoming) Resurgent religion, resurgent patriarchy? Strictly observant religion, gender and the state, in American Behavioral Scientist (with Pinar Dokumaci).
- (2023) “Scoping review on climate change and mental health in Germany: direct and indirect effects, vulnerable groups and resilience factors”, Journal of Health Monitoring, 8(S4), 132-161 (with Nadja Gebhardt, Katharina van Bronswijk, Maxie Bunz, Pia Nissen, Christoph Nikendei)
- (2023) “The politics of mapping religion: Locating, counting and categorizing places of worship in European Cities”. Space & Culture, 26(2), 167-179 (with Mar Griera and Julia Martínez-Ariño).
- (2022) “Conscripts of secularism: nationalism, Islam and violence”, Religion, State and Society, 50(5), 513-531.
- (2022) “The emergence of a new human being”, Angelaki 27(5), 174-181 (with Luce Irigaray).
- (2021) “Islam and space in Europe: the politics of race, time and secularism”, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 44(10), 1673-1689 (with Adela Taleb and Chris Moses)
- (2021) “State, Space, Secularism: Towards a critical study of governing religion”, in Ethnic and Racial Studies, 44(10), 1690-1711.
- (2020) “Secularisation theory and its discontents: Recapturing postcolonial and gendered narratives”, in Social Compass, 62(2), 315-322.
Edited special issues and books:
- (forthcoming) “Strictly observant religion, gender and the state in the 21st century”, special issue in American Behavioral Scientist, forthcoming late 2024 (with Pinar Dokumaci)
- (2022) “Rethinking Islam and Space in Europe: The Politics of Race, Time and Secularism” London: Routledge (with Chris Moses and Adela Taleb)
- (2021) “Rethinking Islam and Space in Europe: Governance, Institutions, Performance”, special issue in Ethnic and Racial Studies, published as issue 44(10) (with Adela Taleb and Chris Moses)
Op-Eds:
- (2021) “People of faith are allies to stall climate change”, Nature, 592, 9. (link)
- (2021) “The Activisms of COP26.” The Ecologist, 22 November. (link)
Photo credit: Sabine Vielmo / The New Institute
