Samir Khalaf

Samir Khalaf "is professor of Sociology and Director of the Center for Behavioral Research at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon. Educated at AUB (BA 1955, MA 1957) and Princeton University (Ph.D 1964), he has also held academic appointments at Princeton, Harvard, MIT and New York University. He is the author of numerous journal articles and book chapters on comparative modernization, socio-cultural history, urbanization, and post-war reconstruction. Among his books are Civil and Uncivil Violence in Lebanon: A History of the Internationalization of Communal Conflict (2002), Cultural Resistance: Global & Local Encounters in the Middle East (2001), Beirut Reclaimed (1994), Recovering Beirut (with Philip Khoury, 1993), Lebanons Predicament (1987), Persistence and Change in Nineteenth-Century Lebanon (1973) and Hamra of Beirut (1973). Currently he is about to finish two other manuscripts: America As a Soft Power: Protestant Missionaries and Cultural Change in the Levant and Cosmopolitan Beirut: Cultural Identities in a Post-war Setting. He has been a recipient of several international fellowships and research awards and appointed on the international jury to review master plans for the post-war reconstruction of Beirut. He is a trustee of several foundations and serves on the editorial boards of a score of international journals and publications.“

Recent Awards

 * Fulbright Scholar, 1984-85
 * Ford Foundation, 1985-86
 * MacArthur Foundation Award, 1989-90
 * Lilly Endowment, 1990-92
 * Andrew Mellon Foundation, 1994-2004
 * International Development Research Center (IDRC), 1997-99
 * European Union, 2003-5


 * Member, Human Rights Watch Middle East Advisory Committee
 * Director, AMIDEAST