Re-imagining Islam: From Alterity to Empathy

An outreach project and impact case study run by Dr. James Hodkinson, and funded by the Warwick Impact Fund and Warwick Public Engagement Fund.

The 'Re-imagining Islam' project is a multi-dimensional outreach programme, which takes key aspects of James Hodkinson's research into Islam in German history and culture (1770-1918) and finds multiple pathways along which to communicate this material meaningfully to varying non-academic publics.

The programme of events and activities includes public lectures, accompanied by a mobile exhibition, which take place in faith forums, religious and civic centres. The Two Chairs Exchange wing of the project reaches out into secondary schools, were it impacts and enriches the delivery of the Key Stage 4 and 5 curriculum (14-18 year olds) across a number of subjects, including MFL and Religious Studies and stimulates extra-curricular arts projects, and also underpins a sequence of community events and arts projects designed to facilitate cross-community encounters, enhance public debate, cross-community empathy and more nuanced mutual understanding between Muslim and non-Muslim communities in towns and cities across the UK. The project is enhanced by a including a documentary film shot in Vienna, Austria.

This work has been generously funded on three separate occasions since 2015 by the Warwick Impact Fund and the Warwick Public Engagement Fund to the sum of £58K.

These webpages not only chronicle the project and disseminate its materials, but will also offer an insight into how the 'impactful' dimension of the project is being tracked and evaluated in both quantitative and qualitative terms.