About Me

Initially trained as an economist, I turned to religious and intellectual history to help me think about the sheer peculiarity of life. My education — from small town America to European metropolis — brought me into contact with a wide range of people, ideas, and cultures. This varied existence only increased as I refused to settle into one single profession. 

My academic research has focused on the intersection of religious and economic practices. My current research project Charity and Violence is analyzing the social effect of religious charitable giving on the support and promotion of conflict. This research began during my research fellowship in Paris, France at the Laboratoire d’excellence – Religions et Sociétés dans le Monde Mediterranéen at the Université Paris – Sorbonne (Paris IV), was nurtured through my work at the University of Virginia and Global Covenant Partners, and is coming to fruition at the Harvard Program on Human Flourishing and the Trust and Belonging Initiative, for which I am a Co-Principal Investigator. But the ideas at the heart of this project emerged from my time working as an Economist in Washington, DC. You can find my working papers on the Charity and Violence page.

I am currently Visiting Faculty at the Program on Human Flourishing in the Institute for Quantiative Social Science. Prior to Harvard, I was an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Research Fellow at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berling. I held both of thiese appointments alongside my primary affiliation as Research Fellow at the Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry in the Australian Catholic University.  Before making this leap to Melbourne, Berlin, and Cambridge, Mass, I was Lecturer in Religious Studies and the Associate Director of the Initiative on Religion, Politics and Conflict at the University of Virginia. In addition to my teaching, research and administrative duties at the University of Virginia, I chaired working groups on Religion and Political Economy, Political Islam, and Religion and Data Science, and manage student programs and research. I earned my doctorate from the University of Cambridge.

– Jonathan Teubner