Amira Mittermaier is professor in the Department for the Study of Religion and the Department of Anthropology at the University of Toronto. A cultural anthropologist, Mittermaier has written extensively on lived Islam in Egypt. Her books include Dreams that Matter (California, 2010), Giving to God (California, 2019), and Ninety-Nine (Duke, 2026).

Mittermaier’s work on Muslim God-imaginaries has been supported by a 2021 John Guggenheim Fellowship. She is increasingly interested in how God is reconfigured and re-imagined in troubled times. Recently she has embarked on a collaborative project that examines lived Islamic theologies in Gaza since 2023.

Methodologically, Mittermaier has long been interested in how anthropologists can approach the invisible and intangible: gods and spirits but also dreams and hopes. She is curious about the evocative power of ethnographic writing and how the genre of ethnography can offer a home to the elusive. Her award-winning first book, Dreams that Matter, laid the groundwork for an anthropology of the imagination. Her latest book, Ninety-Nine, presents an ethnography of God. 

Since July 2026, Mittermaier has been the Director of the Institute of Islamic Studies. Currently, she is also the President of the Society for the Anthropology of Religion.