Dr Adrian Brockett
Principal Lecturer in International Development
Adrian Brockett’s ambition in life is to build
bridges between Europe and its neighbours the Middle East, North
Africa and the further Muslim World. He is a Principal Lecturer in
the Faculty of Education and Theology at York St John University.
With a passionate involvement on the one hand with Learning &
Teaching in Higher Education and on the other with the study of
Islam and the Arabic language, his work and experience spans both
wings of the Faculty.
He joined York St John from Sunderland University where he was
Assistant Director of Learning Development, with special
responsibility for developing distance-learning degrees and
e-learning in general. Prior to that Adrian was Owner-Manager of
Quest Multimedia, an educational CD-ROM publisher, and in 1996 he
won the prestigious National Languages for Export Award (new
technologies) - a Department of Trade and Industry award usually
given to large organisations. The award was for a CD to learn how
to write and read Arabic. For 6 years prior to that he was
Professor of Arab and Islamic Studies at Durham University, which
included being Head of Department and Director of the Middle East
Centre. Leading up to that he had been a lecturer in several UK
Departments of Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies. But his most
memorable post was as Field Director of the Khabura Agricultural
Development Project in the Sultanate of Oman where he led a team of
11 agriculturalists working with local small-farmers to help
develop their traditional methods of irrigation, livestock
breeding, crop management, bee keeping and the like. This
experience immeasurably deepened his respect for the Muslim way of
life, his love of the Arabic language and his desire to promote
mutual understanding between cultures.
His PhD - acceptable to Muslims and Orientalists alike - was on
the early textual history of the Qur'an, and he is the author of
various publications on Islamic Culture, Arabic and aspects of
Learning & Teaching by computer. Among other projects, he is
currently leading a large survey into the attitudes of 14-18 year
old school children towards Islam, Muslims, Arabs and the Middle
East. This is with a view to establishing reliable measures to
gauge whether these attitudes are getting better or worse and then
to work with schools to help counteract any worsening
tendencies.
More details on Adrian’s research
interests.
Contact Details
E: a.brockett@yorksj.ac.uk
T: 01904 876579
Office Location: QN