Masoumeh Bayat

Masoumeh is a doctoral candidate in Political Science at the University of Siegen in Germany. She completed her “1. Staatsexamen” degree (equivalent to Master of Education) in 2008 in Political Science, German Language and Literature Studies from the Leibniz University of Hanover, Germany.

Her PhD research, which is funded by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom, is focused on the political and media representation of Muslims in the context of the German Islam Conference (GIC). In her dissertation, she analyzes the GIC at the political and media level in terms of where essential indicators of the success of the deliberative committee can be found. The guiding questions in her studies are: Who is “allowed” to speak for Muslims, and how are Muslim representatives selected?

As a Visiting Student Researcher at the Europe Center and the Department of Political Science from July 15^th to October 15^th, Masoumeh will study the transatlantic perspective of the German Islam Conference.