Dr. Robert Langer has been professor for the Study of Religions with a focus on Islam at Universität der Bundeswehr München since September 15, 2022. He previously worked as a senior research fellow for the history of religions at Orient-Institut Istanbul, which he joined on October 1, 2017. He is an Islamic Studies scholar and a cultural anthropologist specializing in the study of Islamicate cultures. He studied in Heidelberg, Damascus, Ankara, and Istanbul and received his PhD from the Faculty of Philosophy at Heidelberg University in 2004 with a thesis on shrine and pilgrimage practices of contemporary Zoroastrians in Iran. In 2015, he submitted his postdoctoral dissertation to the same university, dealing with Alevi rituals in the transnational context. After obtaining his postdoctoral qualification (Habilitation) at Heidelberg University in 2016, he was appointed Privatdozent (adjunct lecturer) with a venia legendi for Islamic studies. From 2014 to 2017, he led a junior research group at the University of Bayreuth, which focused on Shiite religiosity in Germany (funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research). From 2013 to 2015, he was the leader of a project on Alevi cultural heritage at Heidelberg University, which was funded by the German Universities Excellence Initiative. From 2002 to 2013, he worked at the “Ritual Dynamics” Collaborative Research Centre at Heidelberg University on the rituals of marginalized religious groups in majority Muslim societies, for example the Anatolian Alevis and the Yezidis (Êzidî). From 2000 to 2002, he was a member of a junior research group at the Institute for the Study of Religions at Heidelberg University, which was funded by the German Research Council’s Emmy Noether Program. From 2020 to 2022, he taught as acting deputy professor for the Study of Religions with a focus on Islam at Universität der Bundeswehr München; 2013 to 2014, as acting deputy professor at the Chair of Islamic Studies at Heidelberg University; and from 2006 to 2007, as deputy assistant professor of Islamic Studies (with a focus on social anthropology) at the Institute for Islamic Studies and Modern Oriental Philology at the University of Bern. He conducted field research in Iran, Turkey, Armenia, and among different diaspora groups of Near and Middle Eastern origin in Europe.