دعوة للضحك: سيرة عالم أنثروبولوجيا لبناني في الوطن العربي

by فؤاد إسحق الخوري

"A book that every student of the Middle East and anthropology at large should read: a witty, well-written account of a life full of anthroplogical adventure." Susanne Dahlgren | Suomen Anthropology

280 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2017

About the author

Fuad Ishak Khuri (فؤاد إسحق الخوري) Born in 1935, Professor Khuri earned his BA and MA degrees from AUB and a PhD in social anthropology from the University of Oregon. He joined the AUB faculty as an instructor in 1964 and was promoted to assistant professor the following year. In 1971, he became associate professor and was placed on tenure appointment in 1972, and then was promoted to the rank of professor in 1978. Professor Khuri served several terms as chairperson of the Department of Sociology and the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences. His two early books published by the University of Chicago Press, From Village to Suburb (1975) and Tribe and State in Bahrain (1980) are considered pioneering anthropological works. In later works he explored the minorities in Islam in radical and innovative ways. His book Imams and Emirs (2000) presents a novel discussion of state, religion, and sects in Islam.

Dr. Khuri was a pioneer in exploring areas in Arab culture that few people reflected on in a scholarly and coherent fashion. This is illustrated in his more recent books The Body in Islamic Culture (2001) which investigates the concept of the body in Islam, showing how meanings and images concerning the human form impact religious and social attitudes, and in his Tents and Pyramids (1990) which discusses games and ideology in Arab culture.