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The American Academy in Berlin cordially invites you to theForeign Policy ForumBeing German, Becoming Muslim:Race, Religion, and Conversion in the New EuropeEsra ÖzyürekAssociate Professor in Contemporary Turkish Studies, European Institute,the London School of Economics and Political Science;and Alumna, American Academy in BerlinIn conversation with Yasemin Shooman,Head of the Academy Programs Migration and Diversity, Jewish Museum BerlinTuesday, March 17, 2015, 7:30 pmLocation: American Academy in Berlin, Am Sandwerder 17-19, 14109 BerlinGenerously supported by Daimler-Fonds Registration required by March 13, 2015fax: +49 (30) 804 83 444, email: program@americanacademy.de,or online: www.americanacademy.deEvery year more and more Europeans are embracing Islam. It is estimated that there are now up to one hundred thousand German converts - a number similar to that in France and the United Kingdom. What stands out about recent conversions is that they take place at a time when Islam is increasingly seen as contrary to European values. In her new book, Being German, Becoming Muslim (Princeton University Press, 2015), Esra Özyürek explores how Germans come to Islam within this antagonistic climate, how they manage to balance their love for Islam with their society’s fear of it, how they relate to immigrant Muslims, and how they shape debates about race, religion, and belonging in today’s Europe. In conversation with Yasemin Shooman, of the Jewish Museum Berlin, she will discuss how mainstream society marginalizes converts, questions their national loyalties, and how converts try to disassociate themselves from migrants of Muslim-majority countries, and promote a denationalized Islam untainted by Turkish or Arab traditions.Esra Özyürek is an associate professor and the chair of contemporary Turkish studies at the European Institute of the London School of Economics. Prior, she taught in the department of anthropology at the University of California, San Diego, from 2003–2013, and at the University of Pittsburgh, from 2002–2003. Özyürek is editor of The Politics of Public Memory in Turkey (Syracuse, 2007), and Remembering and Forgetting: Social Memory in Turkey (İletişim, 2001), and the author of Nostalgia for the Modern: State Secularism and Everyday Politics in Turkey (Duke, 2006). Özyürek was a Bosch Public Policy Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin in fall 2006.Yasemin Shooman leads the Academy Programs at the Jewish Museum Berlin since 2013 and is responsible in the programs migration and diversity, as well as the Jewish-Islamic Forum of the Academy. She received her PhD in History at the Centre for Research on Anti-Semitism at the Technische Universität Berlin. Her research interests focuses on racism, Islamophobia, and media analysis. She is the author of “... weil ihre Kultur so ist”: Narrative des antimuslimischen Rassismus (transcript, 2014).