About

Dr. Rebecca Faulkner specializes in the study of Islam. She earned her Ph.D. in 2021 from the Department of Religion at Princeton University. She is interested in political philosophy, political economy, and theology, especially in relation to Islamic modernism in South Asia. Her current book manuscript focuses on the poet-philosopher Muhammad Iqbal. 

In the 2021-22 academic year, Faulkner was appointed Lecturer in the Department of Religion at Princeton and taught “Introduction to Islam” in the fall and “Muslim America” in the spring. She has previously taught in the departments of Near Eastern Studies, Philosophy, and Religion for the courses “Muslims and the Qur’an,” “Religion and Reason,” and “Jesus and Buddha.” She is interested in game pedagogy and participates in several organizations related to its study and development (Reacting to the Past and the related Game Development Conference). 

Recently, her research has been supported by fellowships from the Center for the Study of Religion (twice, in Religion and Culture and Religion and Public Life), the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies, and the Center for Digital Humanities. She has also been awarded the national Foreign Language and Area Studies Scholarship and the Critical Language Scholarship for studying Hindi and Urdu in India. 

Prior to joining the Department of Religion at Princeton, Faulkner earned an M.A. in Islamic Studies from Columbia University with a thesis on phenomenology and metaphysics of religious experience. She received dual B.A. summa cum laude in Philosophy and Religion from the University of Georgia, where she also completed a certificate in Native American Studies.