Amelia Gallagher teaches a variety of courses in World Religions.  A native of Niagara Falls, she received a BA in Religious Studies from the University of Michigan, an MA in Religious Studies from McGill University and a Ph.D. from the Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University. 

Gallagher’s research interests include Islamic heterodoxy and Islamic mysticism.  Her current research involves the poetry attributed to Shah Ismail Safevi (d. 1524) as well as other Alevi-Bektashi poets of the period.

At the November 2007 Middle East Studies Association Conference, Gallagher will serve as a discussant on a panel entitled “Flux in the Construction of Social Categories in the Ottoman Empire.”  Her article “Shah Ismail Safevi and the Miraj: Hata’i’s Vision of a Sacred Assembly” will be published this fall