Professor Ruth Harris

Professor of Modern European History, University of Oxford
BA, MA, DPhil, FBA
Senior Research Fellow since 2016

I am studying global spiritual renewal between approximately 1880 and 1950 by examining the impact of South Asian spiritual figures on Europe and America. The work will concentrate on three themes: the global debate regarding science and religion; the tension between universal spiritual systems and spiritualised nationalism; and the collaborations between South Asian men and their western female adherents. I will be giving the Trevelyan lectures in Cambridge in early 2017 where I will talk about the ‘global idealist moment’ at the turn of the twentieth century.