Kathleen M. Moore

Kathleen M. Moore is a Professor and Associate Dean of Humanities and Fine Arts at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she also serves as Director of the Legal Humanities Initiative. She is affiliated with the Department of Religious Studies and has established herself as a leading scholar in the study of Islam in America, law and religion, and Muslim diasporas.

Dr. Moore earned her Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her academic journey has focused on the complex intersections of religion, law, and politics in American society, particularly examining how religious identities are constructed and negotiated within legal frameworks.

Professor Moore's research centers on how religion and politics intersect to construct 'Muslim' as a public identity, with particular attention to anti-Muslim racism and law in the United States. Her work explores the development of Islamic law in Western contexts, examining how Muslim communities navigate legal systems that were not designed with their traditions in mind. She has also examined the engagement of the conservative Christian legal movement with contemporary politics, drawing from anthropological and sociological approaches to the study of law and society.

Her publications reveal a consistent scholarly trajectory focused on religious identity formation, legal consciousness among minority religious communities, and the tensions between religious practice and secular law. Moore's work demonstrates how religious minorities, particularly Muslims, develop new forms of legal reasoning and consciousness in response to Western legal frameworks.

Professor Moore teaches courses including Muslim Diasporas and the Law, Introduction to Religion and Politics, Introduction to Legal Humanities, Islam in America, Law, Religion and Secularism: Church-State Relations, Religious Liberty, and Feminist Legal Thought and Religion. Her teaching reflects her interdisciplinary approach that bridges religious studies, law, and political science.