Background
Valerie J. Hoffman was born on April 27, 1954, in Rockville Centre, New York, United States. She is the daughter of Robert E. Hoffman and Dolores M. (Ogren) Hoffman.
98 Taylor Avenue Greenlawn, New York 11740, United States
Harborfields High School where Valerie J. Hoffman studied.
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, United States
The University of Pennsylvania where Valerie J. Hoffman received her Bachelor of Arts degree.
Hill House, Room 103 AUC Tahrir Square Cairo, Egypt
American University in Cairo where Valerie J. Hoffman studied.
5801 S Ellis Ave, Chicago, IL 60637, United States
Chicago University where Valerie J. Hoffman received her Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy degrees.
(Drawing on detailed fieldwork and on textual analysis of ...)
Drawing on detailed fieldwork and on textual analysis of a variety of little-known recent and medieval sources, Valerie J. Hoffman presents Sufism as it exists in Egypt today, in the vivid experiences of its adherents, from humble housewives to famous mystics and saints.
https://www.amazon.com/Sufism-Mystics-Studies-Comparative-Religion/dp/1570030553/?tag=2022091-20
1995
(Hoffman introduces Ibadi Islam theology to the non-Arabic...)
Hoffman introduces Ibadi Islam theology to the non-Arabic speaking world. Ibadis view themselves as being the oldest and most genuine sect of Islam.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BH9O982/?tag=2022091-20
2012
(Demands for freedom, justice, and dignity have animated p...)
Demands for freedom, justice, and dignity have animated protests and revolutions across the Middle East in recent years, from the Iranian Green Movement and the Arab Spring uprisings to Turkey’s March for Justice and the ongoing struggle in Palestine. Although expectations raised by the Arab Spring were largely disappointed and protests that toppled entrenched rulers unleashed vicious counterrevolutionary forces, there is no doubt that the landscape of the Middle East has changed. Drawing from diverse disciplines, this volume offers critical perspectives on these changes, covering politics, religion, gender dynamics, human rights, media, literature, and music.
https://www.amazon.com/Making-New-Middle-East-Contemporary/dp/0815636121/?tag=2022091-20
2019
Valerie J. Hoffman was born on April 27, 1954, in Rockville Centre, New York, United States. She is the daughter of Robert E. Hoffman and Dolores M. (Ogren) Hoffman.
When in the second grade of Harborfields High School, Greenlawn, New York, Valerie started writing stories, often stories of fantastical creatures like fairies and witches. At age twelve she switched to stories that took place on the Oregon Trail or in Papua New Guinea, reflecting her interest in people of other times and cultures. She graduated from the school in 1971.
In her sophomore year at the University of Pennsylvania, Valerie Hoffman began to study Arabic, knowing very little about Arabs or Islam. She graduated in 1975 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in anthropology with the thesis The Muslim Family in NonArab Societies. Her father had always encouraged her to study abroad for her junior year. She chose Tunisia, where she could study in French and learn about Arab culture at the Center for Arabic Study Abroad at American University in Cairo. It was there that Valerie was struck by the influence of Islam on Arab culture.
After a year of advanced Arabic language training in Cairo, she went on to do Arabic and Islamic studies at the University of Chicago, where her natural interest in religious and intellectual history led her to specialize in Islamic philosophy and theology. In 1979, she did a master’s thesis The Theological Development of the Concept of the Unity of God in Islam and startled her advisers by proposing a doctoral thesis topic that combined her new interest in Islamic thought with her old interest in anthropology: The Religious Life of Muslim Women in Contemporary Egypt. She received a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Arabic and Islamic studies in 1986.
Hoffman has also studied intermediate Arabic in summer 1973 at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. From 1973 till 1974 she attended L’Université de Tunis (Tunis University).
Valerie J. Hoffman is a professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign since 2011 and a head of the Department of Religion from 2015. At this university, she also worked as a visiting lecturer from 1983 to 1986, an assistant professor from 1986 to 1994, and an associate professor from 1994 to 2011. From 2011 to 2015, she also worked as director of the Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
In that position, she secured grants for the center that funded new faculty positions, courses, scholarships, workshops, and lectures. Even though she has experienced many highlights throughout her career, she is especially proud of the research that led to the publication of her first book, Sufism, Mystics, and Saints in Modern Egypt, which was published by the University of South Carolina Press in 1995.
Hoffman has worked on many aspects of Islam, from the time of the Prophet to the contemporary period. She has conducted textual studies and has done fieldwork. She did two major fieldwork projects in Egypt, one on Muslim women's religious lives in contemporary Egypt (1980-81) and another on Sufism in modern Egypt (1987-89). Then she studied Swahili and spent two summers in Zanzibar, where she became aware that two distinct strands of Arabian Islam had impacted the Swahili coast: the Sultanate of Oman and the Hadramawt region of Yemen.
She spent the 2000-2001 academic year in Oman and the Hadramawt and became particularly interested in the Ibadi sect of Islam, an ancient and small sect that is neither Sunni nor Shiite and is practiced in Oman and small pockets of North Africa. She has since written the first English-language study of Ibadi theology and has become a specialist in Ibadism in the modern period, especially in Oman and Zanzibar.
Utilizing her extensive knowledge of Middle Eastern studies, she served on the editorial board of the International Journal of Middle East Studies and has contributed 70 articles to journals, books, and encyclopedias. Additionally, she authored The Essentials of Ibadi Islam in 2012 and wrote, narrated and produced a documentary, Celebrating the Prophet in the Remembrance of God: Sufi Dhikr in Egypt, in 1997. Most recently, Hoffman published an edited volume, Making the New Middle East: Politics, Culture, and Human Rights, in 2019.
(Demands for freedom, justice, and dignity have animated p...)
2019(Drawing on detailed fieldwork and on textual analysis of ...)
1995(Hoffman introduces Ibadi Islam theology to the non-Arabic...)
2012Valerie J. Hoffman is the member of Middle East Studies Association of North America, American Academy of Religion, Association of Middle East Women’s Studies, American Institute of Maghreb Studies, American Research Center in Egypt, Muhyiddin Ibn ’Arabi Society.
Valerie J. Hoffman married Steven Ladd but they divorced on March 21, 1995. The marriage produced three children. On June 10, 1998, she married Kirk O. Hauser.