Bassam Tibi field of work international relations
Bassam Tibi (Arabic: بسام طيبي), is a Syrian-born German political scientist and professor of international relations specializing in Islamic studies and Middle Eastern studies. He was born in 1944 in Damascus, Syria to an aristocratic family, and moved to West Germany in 1962, where he later became a naturalized citizen in 1976.
He is known for his analysis of international relations and the introduction of Islam to the study of international conflict and of civilization. Tibi is known for introducing the controversial concept of European Leitkultur, as well as the concept of Euroislam to discussions about integration of Muslim immigrants in European countries. Tibi has done research in Asian and African countries. He publishes in English, German, and Arabic.Academic career
He studied in Frankfurt am Main under Max Horkheimer, obtaining his Ph.D. there in 1971, and later habilitated in Hamburg, Germany. From 1973 until his retirement in 2009, he was Professor for International Relations at Göttingen University. Parallel to this appointment he was, from 1982 to 2000, at Harvard University in a variety of affiliations, the latest being a 1998 to 2000 stint as The Bosch Fellow. Currently, he is an A.D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University. Tibi had eighteen visiting professorships in all continents including fellowships in Princeton University, UC Berkeley, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, and most recently (2010) at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, Washington D.C. Tibi was also a visiting senior fellow at Yale University. After his retirement in 2009, he published Islam's Predicament with Modernity, a book embodying his life's work.
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