Adi Saleem Bharat

Adi Saleem Bharat holds a PhD from the University of Manchester. He is also the co-founder and coordinator of the Jewish-Muslim Research Network (JMRN), an interdisciplinary and international research network of over a hundred scholars of Jewish and Muslim studies. Dr. Bharat's research broadly focuses on representations and lived experiences of ethnic and religious minorities, particularly Jews and Muslims, in France. His work is interdisciplinary, intersecting with cultural studies, media studies, literary studies, and applied linguistics.

Dr. Bharat is particularly committed to furthering diversity, inclusion, and equity in the academy and mentoring underrepresented students at Michigan.

Current Work:

Dr. Bharat is currently working on two main projects. The first is a manuscript tentatively titled Beyond Jewish-Muslim Relations, which examines and challenges the construction of a polarized, oppositional category of "Jewish-Muslim relations" in media and political discourse in France. The second relates to the politics of conversion to and apostasy from Islam. In a contemporary French (and Western) context where Islam is increasingly politicized, studying the related phenomena of apostasy and conversion may illuminate the selective ways in which diverse media and political actors often weaponize Islam and (ex-)Muslims. He is also co-editing a special issue of the Journal of Language and Sexuality (Jan. 2021) on the topic of Pink Dot, an LGBT movement that began in Singapore in 2009.

Research Area Keyword(s):

Jews, Muslims, race and religion, queer studies, applied linguistics, cultural studies