In fall 2018, Brannon Ingram and Elizabeth Shakman Hurd co-taught a “Reporting Islam” course at Northwestern University. It brought together Medill School of Journalism and Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences students with an interest in Islam and Muslims in the United States, U.S. foreign policy, and the politics and practices of reporting on those topics.
Through a combination of readings, site visits, individual and group projects, and critical writing assignments, the goals of this course were to:
- Empower students to recognize the pitfalls of how Islam and Muslims are reported and represented in U.S. print media and other formats
- Innovate new ways of writing about Islam and Muslims that do not replicate the Islamophobic or Islamophilic tropes that dominate much of this reporting.
Student Essays
Avery Van Etten – “Learning at the Muslim Community Center”
Caity Henderson – “Muslim community organization on cutting edge of hunger prevention”
Elisabeth Phillips – “Nothing to Prove, Nothing to Hide”
Hannah Brown – “Community finding their faith at the Morton Grove Muslim Community center”