Professor Michael Driessen Wins Prestigious Jean Monnet Fellowship

John Cabot University is pleased to announce that Professor Michael Driessen has won a prestigious Jean Monnet Fellowship to continue his research on interreligious dialogue at the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence, Italy.

Professor Driessen has been awarded a sabbatical leave from JCU for the 2018-2019 academic year to take up residence at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies (RSCAS) at the EUI to work on his current book project, The Global Politics of Interreligious Dialogue. He has also been awarded a Launch Grant from the Global Religion Research Initiative at the University of Notre Dame to conduct fieldwork in Lebanon, Egypt, and Jordan for his project next summer.

Professor Michael Driessen

Associate Professor and chair of the Department of Political Science and International Affairs at John Cabot University, Professor Driessen also co-directs the University’s Interfaith Initiative. His research focuses on the role of public religions in Catholic and Muslim societies. His latest book is Religion and Democratization: Framing Religious and Political Identities in Muslim and Catholic Societies (Oxford UP, 2014). He collaborates frequently with the Lebanese Interfaith Foundation, Adyan.

“I am honored to have received this fellowship and be given the opportunity to spend a year researching and writing on this project with a network of scholars who are experts in the field. I am also grateful for the continued encouragement of John Cabot University, which has supported this project since its beginning,” said Professor Driessen.