Research Fellow
University of Zürich

Mattias Brand is a Research Fellow at the Department of Religious Studies and a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Zürich's Department of Religious Studies. He holds a B.A. in History (2009) from Utrecht University and M.A.s in Ancient History (2010) and the Study of Religion (2012) from Leiden University, where he also completed his Ph.D. (2019) in the Study of Religion. His first book, Religion and the Everyday Life of Manichaeans in Kellis: Beyond Light and Darkness was published by Brill in 2022. A volume on Religious Identifications in Late Antique Papyri is forthcoming with Routledge. Both studies derive from his interest in the application of current theories in the study of religions to the extant sources of the ancient world. Earlier publications include "In the Footsteps of the Apostles of Light: Persecution and the Manichaean Discourse of Suffering" (2019) and "Ten Steps to Superiority: Manichaean Historical Reasoning and the Formation of a New Religion" (2021). Apart from his work on Manichaeism, Dr. Brand works on the role of historians in the study of religion (forthcoming in the Journal of Religious History) and the transformation of religious practices within ancient and contemporary houses. As a Research Fellow at the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Vienna, Dr. Brand will carry on a larger research project on the domestication of religious practices and objects across history (late antique Egypt, Victorian-era United States, and present-day Switzerland).