Dr. Juan E. Campo, Associate Professor of Religious Studies at UCSB, holds a BA in History from the University of Southern California and an MA and PhD from the University of Chicago’s History of Religions Program. He has served as Co-Director of the UCSB Center for Middle East Studies and directs the graduate program of the UCSB Religious Studies Department. Professor Campo specializes in the comparative study of Islam, particularly in the Middle East and South Asia. His research has taken him to Egypt, where he lived for six years, including two years as the Director of the UC Education Abroad Program study center at American University in Cairo, and to India, where he served as director of the UC Education Abroad Program’s study centers in Delhi and Hyderabad from 1998 to 2001. Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Turkey, Singapore, and Thailand are other countries where he has conducted research.
At UCSB, Professor Campo teaches courses on Islamic tradition; religion, politics and society in the Persian Gulf region; Islamic mysticism; modern Islamic movements; Islam in India; the Qur’an; Arabic religious texts; as well as introductory courses on the study of religion, religion and Western civilization, and Middle Eastern studies. He co-teaches as course on food and religion in the Middle East with his wife, Magda Campo.
Professor Campo’s book, The Other Sides of Paradise: Explorations in the Religious Meanings of Domestic Space in Islam, won the American Academy of Religion’s Award for Excellence in 1991. Topics examined in other publications and lectures include modern Islamic movements, the history of Islam in the Middle East, Hinduism and Islam, and the growth of the Muslim community in Southern California. He has edited or contributed articles appearing in a number of leading reference works, including Encyclopedia of World Religions, Encyclopedia of the Qur’an and the Macmillan Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World. His latest article is on the subject Muslim beliefs and practices concerning death, published in the book Death and Religion in a Changing World, edited by Kathleen Garces-Foley (M.E. Sharpe 2006). Currently, Professor Campo is chief editor and author for the Facts on File Encyclopedia of Islam (forthcoming), and writing a book entitled Pilgrimages in Modernity—a comparative look at Muslim, Hindu, and Christian pilgrimages in the modern world.
