Marie Chabbert recently joined the History of Philosophy research group of the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies as an Assistant Professor in Modern European Philosophy. Her research interrogates how French philosophers from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries – particularly thinkers associated with post-structuralism, deconstruction, and phenomenology – contribute to the question of peaceful religious coexistence at a time of a global rise in anti-religious hatred and violence committed in the name of God. Her first monograph, preliminarily entitled What Comes After Tolerance? A French Theory of Religious Diversity is forthcoming.

In line with Utrecht University’s commitment to drawing attention to the relevance of academic research to broader social issues, she has long been active in the field of interfaith, taking part in and presiding over peace-building initiatives that tackle the global rise in extreme beliefs and religious hate crimes. In 2021, she was named Young Interfaith Leader by the United Nations Office of Counter Terrorism and the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations, for which I now serve as Interfaith Ambassador. As part of a wider commitment to public engagement in the humanities, and in view of raising awareness of the urgent social themes on which her philosophical work focuses, she is also a regular contributor to the French newspaper Le Monde as well as to the French intellectual magazine Esprit.