Since its founding in 1996, the Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO) has placed special value on sharing research results with the society and public debates. The scholarly expertise of our center enables us to classify and explain current cultural and political developments in non-European regions. Our goal is to break up oversimplified or one-sided ideas about Muslim-shaped societies and regions and to consider them with the same differentiation as we demand for our own society.
To achieve this, we provide a wide public and various target groups in politics, culture, and the media access to research results in diverse formats:
Events: The ZMO organizes events on current scholarly and political topics, often in cooperation with national and international institutions. Here, we work together especially with mediating and cultural organizations and with the political foundations in Germany. Among the events are an annual Open Day, film series and festivals, exhibitions, podium discussions, discussion groups, and public lectures.
Media contributions: ZMO staff members regularly publish articles on current topics in German and international newspapers or in blogs. In addition, they are available as interview partners for newspapers and radio and television stations. All of these contributions can be accessed in our online digital press kit.
Media consulting and expert discussions: With its media consulting, the ZMO contributes to a differentiated view of the Muslim world. Supplementing the media reports and classical interviews, our staff is available for consulting and background discussions. Beyond that, we offer expert discussions for politics, public administration, NGOs, and schools. You will find a list of experts on various regions here.
Newsletter and ZMO Bulletin: The Institute’s monthly newsletter provides information on upcoming events and our staff’s new scholarly and media publications. The ZMO Bulletin provides information twice a year on current research projects at the ZMO and reports on events, workshops, and conferences, as well as on changes in our personnel.
Blogs: The ZMO blog offers a platform to publish texts from the first-person perspective that arise in and around the research process, experiences of guests and students at ZMO, comments on current topics or other personal text forms. Furthermore, the ERC project JUSTIMINO has its own blog In Pursuit of ‘Legality’ and ‘Justice’. Besides their contributions to public media, some fellows also publish texts on their own blogs, for example Nitin Sinha on doublethink and Samuli Schielke on A book of unfinished theories.
Podcasts: In the ZMO kitchen talks podcast, fellows meet around the kitchen table to talk about their research questions and regions, but also to reflect on the challenges of their research and take a look behind the scenes of academic practice. The JUSTIMINO podcast Justice and Minorities focuses on ethnic and religious minorities in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union.