Dr M Kemper (b. 1966) has been appointed professor of Eastern European Studies at the Faculty of Humanities of the Universiteit van Amsterdam (UvA).

In research and teaching, Kemper combines Russian history with Islamic studies. In his dissertation he studied the cultural history of the Volga Tatars under Russian rule (Sufis und Gelehrte in Tatarien und Baschkirien, 1998), and his habilitation explored the jihad of the Muslims of the North Caucasus against the Russian conquest in the 19th century (Herrschaft, Recht und Islam in Daghestan, 2005).

In cooperation with scholars from various republics of the former Soviet Union and the West, Kemper co-edited four volumes of Muslim Culture in Russia and Central Asia (1996-2004) and, together with Maurus Reinkowski, a comparative volume on legal pluralism (2005). He is also co-editor of Islamic Education in the Soviet Union and Its Successor States (forthcoming). His current research is on the history of Oriental studies in the Soviet Union and Soviet perceptions of Islam (“Revolutionary Orientalism”).

Dr Kemper was assistant professor for Central Eurasian History at St Lawrence University in New York since 2005. From 1998 till 2004 he was leader of the junior research group Islamic Networks of Education in Local and Transnational Contexts, 18th – 20th Centuries at Ruhr-Universität Bochum (Germany). Dr Kemper was awarded a Heisenberg Fellowship by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) in 2004.