Robert R. Bianchi                                   KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Middle East Institute, United States of America

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Robert R. Bianchi is a political scientist, an international lawyer, and an authority on the Islamic world and China. He earned his doctorate and law degrees at the University of Chicago where he later joined the faculties of the Political Science Department and the Law School. He has also held professorships at the University of Pennsylvania, the American University in Cairo, Qatar University, the Johns-Hopkins Nanjing Center, the National University of Singapore, and the Shanghai International Studies University. He founded new graduate programs for International Political Economy in Egypt and for International Law in China. In Singapore, he helped launch a research institute for Middle East studies and, in Chicago, he taught the Law School’s first courses on international law dealing with the contemporary Islamic world and China. As a practicing attorney and political consultant, he has advised the World Bank, numerous U.S. government agencies, and several foreign governments. Bianchi is a former Peace Corps volunteer, a three-time Fulbright grantee, and a recipient of the Albert Hourani Book Prize for Guests of God: Pilgrimage and Politics in the Islamic World (Oxford University Press, 2004). His most recent book is China and the Islamic World: How the New Silk Road is Transforming Global Politics (Oxford University Press, 2019). His other books include Islamic Globalization: Pilgrimage, Capitalism, Democracy, and Diplomacy (World Scientific Publishers, 2013), Unruly Corporatism: Associational Life in Twentieth-Century Egypt (Oxford University Press, 1989), and Interest Groups and Political Development in Turkey (Princeton University Press, 1984). Several of Bianchi’s books and essays have been published in foreign languages including Arabic, Persian, Chinese, Turkish, and French.

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