Saba Mahmood is an associate professor of social cultural anthro­pology at the University of California Berkeley. She was awarded the 2013 Axel Springer Berlin Prize Fellowship at the American Academy in Berlin. Saba Mahmood’s research interests lie in exploring historically specific articulations of secular modernity in postcolonial societies, with particular attention to issues of subject formation, religio­sity, embodiment, and gender. Currently she is examining secular-liberal interpretations of Islam in the context of the Middle East and South Asia.