On Wednesday 22 November 2006 Dr Bassam Tibi, Professor of International Relations at the University of Goettingen, will lead a discussion on "Islam and the West" from 5.30pm.
Bassam Tibi is Professor of International Relations at the University of Goettingen and also A.D. White Professor at Large at Cornell University. He was born in Damascus on 4 April 1944 and descends from the centuries old family Banu al-Tibi of Damascene notability (ashraf); before moving to Germany in 1962, he received his school education in Damascus in Islamic and Western style schools and completed his high school education there with the French Baccalaureat. His academic training in Social Science, Philosophy and History was at the Goethe University of Frankfurt.a.M. where he received his first Ph.D. in 1971. Among his academic teachers (Frankfurt School) were Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, Jürgen Habermas and Iring Fetscher. Tibi received his Dr habil (German Super PhD) from the University of Hamburg.
After teaching in Frankfurt and Heidelberg universities Dr Tibi was appointed as Professor for International Relations at the University of Goettingen in 1973. In 1988 he was appointed Professor of Comparative Politics as successor of Stein Rokkan at the University of Bergen/Norway by a Royal resolution of King Olav IV. After the decision to accept the honor but to decline the offer by staying in Goettingen, funds were provided for establishing the Center of International Affairs of which Professor Tibi has been the Director ever since.
Since 1982 Dr Tibi established a global networking for teaching and research starting with Harvard. In this context he has earned his research reputation through his books worldwide. He held various visiting professorships, inter alia, in the United States (Harvard, Princeton, Berkeley, Ann Arbor), Turkey, Sudan, Cameroon, and recently in Switzerland, Indonesia and Singapore. Since July 2004 he holds the A.D. White Professorship-at-Large, Cornell University, USA. On leave from Goettingen and Cornell he spent the academic year 2004/05 first as a Visiting Scholar returning to Harvard University and then as a Senior Research Fellow at the Asia Research Center/National University of Singapore. Between 1982 and 2000 Dr Tibi was affiliated to Harvard in a variety of capacities, the latest as The Harvard Bosch Fellow 1998-2000.
Bassam Tibi has published six books in English and 26 books in German (translated in 16 languages). These books deal with Islamic civilization, the Middle East and the Mediterranian region. His articles and essays have been published in leading journals such as International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Millenium, The Fletcher Forum, Religion-Staat-Gesellschaft, Human Rights Quarterly, Middle East Journal and in encyclopedias such as The Oxford Encyclopedia of Modern Islam, Routledge Encyclopedia of Government and Politics and Encyclopedia of Democracy.
His most recent books in English are The Challenge of Fundamentalism (California University Press, updated edition 2002) and Islam Between Culture and Politics (Palgrave, expanded new edition 2005, with an added part dealing with the world political context of 9/11).
This Discussion Meeting will take place on the 4th floor at Arundel House, 13-15 Arundel Street, WC2R 3DX.
Please notify Kathleen James at james@iiss.org or tel +44 (0)20 7395 9109 if you would like to attend. 
