Samir Khalaf is Professor of Sociology at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon. He has held academic appointments at Princeton, Harvard, MIT and New York University. Among his books are Lebanon Adrift, Sexuality in the Arab World (with John Gagnon), The Heart of Beirut, Civil and Uncivil Violence in Lebanon, Cultural Resistance, and Lebanon's Predicament. He has been a recipient of several international fellowships and research awards, a trustee of numerous foundations and serves on the editorial boards of a score of international journals and publications.