Team > Dr. Kenneth Chitwood

Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences
Study of Religion

Vita

• Guest Lecturer at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, School of Literatures, Languages & Cultures since February 2026.
• Research Assistant in the DFG-Project “The Global Landscapes of Muslim Lives: Latin American and Caribbean Intersections” since January 2026. 
• Post-doc at the University of Bayreuth since June 2024. 
• Journalist Fellow and Affiliate Researcher, Center for Religion and Civic Culture, University of Southern California. May 2019 – present.
• Senior Research Fellow, Muslim Philanthropy Initiative, Lilly School of Philanthropy, Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). July 2022 – June 2024. 
• Fritz Thyssen Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Berlin Graduate School Muslim Cultures and Societies, Freie Universität Berlin. Berlin, Germany. March 2020 – March 2022.
• Lecturer, Islamwissenschaft, Otto Friedrich Universität Bamberg. Bamberg, Germany. March 2020 – July 2020.
• Lecturer, Concordia College New York. April 2019 – June 2021.
• Program Coordinator, Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere, University of Florida. Gainesville, FL. February 2018 – May 2019.
• Digital Humanities Specialist, University of Florida, Religion Department. Gainesville, FL. February 2015 – August 2019.
• Teaching Assistant, University of Florida, Religion Department. Gainesville, FL. August 2014 – May 2018.
• University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, 2014 - 2019. Ph.D. Religion in the Americas (Graduate Certificate, Global Islamic Studies).
• Concordia University, Irvine, CA, 2010-2014. M.A. Theology and Culture (May 2014).
• Concordia University, Irvine, CA, 2003-2007. B.A. Christian Education Leadership & Theological Studies (May 2007).

Latest News:

Dr. Chitwood is currently researching his habilitation project ‘From Barbados to Berlin: "How religious actors navigate the entangled complexities of globality embedded in the mundane experiences of everyday life". This includes a number of previous and forthcoming publications (see below) as well as work on Muslim philanthropy in the Caribbean, religion in Berlin and global Islam.

Upcoming publications:

• 2026     Engaged Spirituality: Stories of religious resilience, inspiration, and pursuing the common good, Bloomsbury Publishing (London).
• 2026     “Religion, Journalism, and Social Change,” in DeGruyter Handbook on Religion and Social Change, eds. Jeyoul Choi, Victoria Machado, N. Marin and Anna Peterson.
• 2027   “Muslim Migrants at American Borders,” in A Place of Their Own: Religion and Immigration among U.S. Latinos, edited by Lloyd Barba, Silvia Pedraza, and Jõao Chaves, Oxford University Press.
  
• 2027   “The Spectre of Islam: Muslims’ Absent Presence in the James Bond Films,” in James Bond and Religion, edited by George Tsakiridis, Routledge. 
  
• 2027    “A Journalist and a Scholar Walk Into the Same Project,” in The Standing and Understanding of Scholars in Society: European and Arab Experience, Arab-German Young Academy, eds. Luise Fischer and Jan Völkel
  
• 2027/28 Berlin | Religion: Encountering Religion in the Late-Modern City. 
  

List of publications (PDF)

Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences
Study of Religion

• Islam and Muslims in Latin America, the Caribbean and the Latinx U.S.A.
  
• Ethnographic study of religion in the global and digital age
  
• Christian-Muslim relations
  
• Migration and religion
  
• Interreligious dialogue
  
• Religion and news
  
• Religion and urbanity
  
• Philanthropy and civic engagement
  

Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences
Study of Religion

Dr. Kenneth Chitwood
Research Associate (DFG project)

E-Mail: kenneth.Chitwood@uni-bayreuth.de
Homepage: http://www.kenchitwood.com/

Study of Religion
Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences
University of Bayreuth
​95440 Bayreuth
Germany