DSR faculty member Amira Mittermaier is co-recipient of a Social Science and Humanities Research Council Connection Grant to support a transnational, interdisciplinary workshop titled "Islamophobia after October 7: Transatlantic Perspectives." The proposal, made with Anver Emon (DSR affiliate faculty and Director of the Institute of Islamic Studies) and Schirin Amir-Moazami (Islamic studies, Free University, Berlin), was supported by the DSR, Anthropology, History, the Institute of Islamic Studies, and the Faculty of Arts & Science. The workshop will be held at the University of Toronto from October 1-3, 2025.
The shapes, meanings, and contestations of Islamophobia continue shifting. One of the most salient watershed moments was 9/11 which unleashed the War on Terror and the securitization of Islam; it was also a gamechanger for the field of Islamic studies. Contending that October 7 constitutes a similar watershed moment, the workshop will take stock of the aftermath of October 7 and its impacts on Islamophobia in both Canada and Germany.
The aim is threefold: first, to provide a critical inventory of the present-day politics of Islamophobia, that is to say, the terrain in which Islamophobia is discussed. Second, to understand the entanglements of Islamophobia and anti-Arab or anti-Palestinian racism. Third, to bring together researchers from Canada and Germany to compare differences and divergences between the two contexts. In the longer run, the goal is to foster and sustain transatlantic research collaborations.