Dr. Margreet van Es

Janskerkhof 13
Janskerkhof 13
Kamer 0
3512 BL Utrecht

Dr. Margreet van Es

Assistant Professor
Religious Studies
m.a.vanes@uu.nl

Dr. Margreet van Es is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies. Her research field lies at the intersection of religion, media, gender, food, cosmopolitanism, and belonging, with special focus on Muslims in Europe. At present, she is affiliated to the NWO-financed research project ‘Religious Matters in an Entangled World’, led by Professor Birgit Meyer. As part of this project, Van Es studies the emergence of trendy, alcohol-free halal restaurants in Rotterdam. Additionally, she teaches courses such as ‘The Sociology of Religion’, ‘Religion and Conflict’, Fundamentalism in Christianity and Islam', and ‘Doing Research in Religious Studies’. 

 

Since 2022, Margreet van Es has been a member of the Utrecht Young Academy, a select group of enthusiastic and ambitious young academics at UU who collaborate across disciplines to generate ideas and influence decision-making processes in academia, policy, and wider society. 

 

Margreet van Es studied History at Leiden University. She obtained her PhD from the University of Oslo in Norway. During the years 2016–2018, Van Es worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Utrecht University. Her project ‘Muslims Condemning Violent Extremism’ was financed by the European Committee via a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Individual Fund (H2020-MSCA-IF-2015).

 

Her PhD thesis and her postdoctoral research project focused on anti-Muslim sentiments in the Netherlands and Norway. More specifically, Van Es analyzed how Muslims fight against stereotypes and make critical contributions to public debates about terrorism and women's emancipation. In October 2017, she organized the international research conference ‘Religious Minorities' Self-Representations: Claims of Difference and Sameness in the Politics of Belonging’.