Senior Fellows
Senior Fellows collaborate with the Oxford Initiative on ongoing projects, design signature seminar sessions, and contribute actively to our community of scholars.
Irshad Manji
Irshad is a renowned author, educator, and founder of the nonprofit Moral Courage Project and the Moral Courage College. Moral courage means doing the right thing in the face of your fears. Irshad began to practice it as she traveled the world to champion a reformist interpretation of Islam. In 2003, Irshad released her international bestseller, The Trouble with Islam Today: A Muslim's Call for Reform in Her Faith, now published in more than 30 countries. In 2007, her Emmy-nominated PBS film, Faith Without Fear, artfully followed her personal campaign to reconcile Islam with women’s equality and honest debate.
Damian Gorman
Damian is an award-winning poet, writer, and director. Damian was recently appointed the fourth and final national/international resident writer of the Theatre Peacebuilding Academy in Northern Ireland. Writer of the BBC2 verse documentary Devices of Detachment, which explored the role of the non-combatant during the Troubles. This was selected for INPUT as one of the 12 best public service programmes in the year of its making, and was subsequently broadcast across the United States on the PBS network. It had a sold-out cinema screening at the Belfast Film Festival in 2013, and in the Black Box in 2019. Damian was awarded the Member of the Order of the British Empire in 1998 for his services to the Arts as a playwright and poet.
Manas Ghanem
Manas is a lawyer, Fulbright laureate, and has served as an international specialist with the United Nations since 2006. She is a Fellow of the Centre for the Resolution of Intractable Conflict at the University of Oxford. Manas built her career working for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in various emergencies and post-conflict countries including Syria, Uzbekistan, Iraq, Libya, Tunisia, Jordan, and Yemen. She worked with UNICEF in Greece on child protection as part of the emergency response to the European refugees and migrant crises. Ghanem founded the UK-based Art & Culture association that works to showcase and grant exposure opportunities to artists residing in conflict zone countries, connecting their artwork with a wider global audience to alter stereotypes and promote creativity, authenticity, and peace. More about her work at Stories Untold—Art from Syria.