Roundtable: Diversity, migration, public space

Bringing together scholars from architecture, politics, and Islamic theology, this is an informal roundtable to think about the different ways that religion and public space intersect—with particular attention for the experience of those who might be considered ‘outsiders’. The invited speakers will share their take on key questions, with others encouraged to take a seat at the table.

Invited speakers

Dr Deniz Cosan Eke will be a Visiting Scholar with the Cambridge Interfaith Programme this summer. Based at the University of Vienna, Deniz teaches and researches in the recently-formed Department for Alevi Theological Studies. Deniz is also part of the EU-funded COST action “Connecting theory and practical issues of migration and religious diversity” (COREnet), leading a working group exploring Migration and religious diversity through the lenses of gender and age. She has also published scholarly articles and chapters on Alevi migration and Alevi movement in transnational context. She is author of “The Changing Leadership Roles of ‘Dedes’ in the Alevi Movement: Ethnographic Studies of Alevi Associations in Turkey and Germany from the 1990s to the Present” (Bielefeld, Germany: Transcript, 2021) and she is currently working on her new book, Gender Dynamics and Religious Transnationalism: Alevi Women in the Diaspora. (Maryland: Lexington Books, 2024.)

Professor Pazit Ben-Nun Bloom is a professor of Political Psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH) at Cambridge this year and an affiliated member of Nuffield College, Oxford. Pazit is leading an ERC-funded project studying the impact of religious symbols (whether present or absent) on people’s experience of public space in France, the UK, and Israel. She has published extensively on religion and immigration and religion and democratic culture more generally, including her article “Religious social identity, religious belief, and anti-immigration sentiment” (American Political Science Review, 2015), her monograph “Religion and democratic commitment: A unifying motivational framework” (Advances in Political Psychology, 2021), and her recent review “The influence of religion on the acceptance and integration of immigrants: A multi-dimensional perspective” (Current Opinion in Psychology, 2022). 

Dr Ruchit Purohit recently joined the Department of Architecture at Cambridge, following the appointment of Professor Flora Samuel as Professor of Architecture in February 2023. Ruchit is lead research associate for the Community Consultation for Quality of Life (CCQOL), a major AHRC-funded project testing different ways of doing community engagement well – using digital mapping, urban rooms and community outreach. Ruchit is an architect, urban designer, and development practitioner, with a longstanding commitment to community-led regeneration, community-led heritage, and community-led design.

Practicalities

This is a Cambridge Interfaith Research Forum event, intended to stimulate new interdisciplinary discussion. Forum members are warmly invited to attend.

We also welcome the curious public—please email our Programme Manager in advance if this will be your first visit to the Faculty of Divinity.

Light refreshments will be available in the Faculty foyer from 2pm, with the roundtable beginning upstairs at 2:30pm.