In France, we’re seeing a continuous pattern of discrimination, fear, hatred, and violence associated with Islamophobia. What’s at the heart of the matter and is it possible to be both French and Muslim in France?

COTC spoke with Dr. Carol Ferrara, assistant professor of Marketing Communication at Emerson College and a sociocultural anthropologist with expertise and field experience in France.

ABOUT OUR GUEST...Drawing upon her diverse academic and professional expertise in anthropology, diversity, pluralism, religion, education, and business, Carol Ferrara's teaching in Marketing Communication encourages students to explore the ways that the social sciences can be leveraged to help make marketing and business better, smarter, and more socially and environmentally responsible.

Her research has focused on religion in secular societies, and most prominently, the ways that Muslims and Catholics navigate and negotiate faith, plurality, ethics, and national identity in secular France. She has published multiple articles and book chapters about private Muslim schooling in France. During the 2019-2020 academic year, Carol was awarded the Fulbright-EHESS Postdoctoral Fellowship to pursue new ethnographic research about independent private schooling in France.

Carol holds a PhD in Sociocultural Anthropology from Boston University, a dual MA in Middle East & Islamic Studies and International Affairs from the American University in Paris, and a BS in International Business from the Rochester Institute of Technology. She is a co-Chair of the American Academy of Religion’s “Religion in Europe” Program Unit, and is on the Research Editorial Board of the journal EuropeNow.

At Emerson, Carol teaches Social and Mobile Marketing (DD603), Global Cultures: Applied Anthropology and Sociology for Marketing (MK665), and Communication, Media and Society (MK120) ,and has previously taught courses on Islam (HI204 and RL115), and Religion and Secularism in Contemporary Societies (SO310).