Zora Kostadinova

Dr Zora Kostadinova

First Book Fellow 2025-26

“The Sufi is the Child of the Present Moment”: Islam, the Self and the Ethical Imagination in Postwar Sarajevo

The Bosnian war of the 1990s caused an unprecedented breakdown of the multiethnic social order, while displacement due to ethnic cleansing and genocide against its Muslim population, changed the Bosnian demographic and socio-cultural landscape permanently.This research seeks to understand how ordinary Muslims responded to such devastating events with their religious choices, and the implications such choices carry for ethical life in a postwar context.

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Areas of interest

Anthropology History Wellness Bosnia & Herzegovina

Cohort

FBF2

Biography

Zora holds a PhD in Anthropology from University College London (2023). Her interdisciplinary research lies at the intersection of the anthropology of Islam and history, examining Muslim practices and subjectivities, historicity and cultural representations of the past, as well as the intergenerational transmission of Islamic knowledge. Additionally, she investigates Islamic discourses and practices related to psychological wellness, particularly in the context of ethical self-cultivation within the post-conflict, multi-confessional, and interethnic landscape of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Currently, Zora work as a Librarian for the Library, Culture, Collections, and Open Science (LCCOS) at UCL. During her ISRF award, she will be a Visiting Research Fellow at UCL Anthropology.

Biographical details correct as of 20.05.25