Malcolm Kerr (academic)

Malcolm Kerr
Born	October 8, 1931(1931-10-08) Beirut, Lebanon
Died	January 18, 1984(1984-01-18) (aged 52) Beirut, Lebanon
Nationality	American
Fields	Middle Eastern studies
Institutions	American University of Beirut
Alma mater	Johns Hopkins University Princeton University

Malcolm Hooper Kerr (October 8, 1931 – January 18, 1984) was a political scientist and teacher who was an expert on Middle East politics. His best known book is The Arab Cold War; Gamal Abd al-Nasir and His Rivals, 1958-1970.

Early life

The son of American relief workers Stanley Kerr and Elsa Reckman, Malcolm Kerr was born in Beirut, Lebanon. Kerr was raised near the American University of Beirut (AUB), where his parents taught.

Career

He went on to college at Princeton University where he earned his undergraduate degree in International Relations with a specialization in the Middle East. He later earned his doctorate from Johns Hopkins School of International Relations (spending two years of this time at Harvard University), with a dissertation on the political and legal theories of Muhammad Abduh and Rashid Rida in early twentieth century Egypt.

Kerr's first teaching position was at American University of Beirut where he taught for three years in the Political Science Department. Thereafter, Kerr went on to teach at University of California, Los Angeles in the Center for Near Eastern Studies and the Department of Political Science. He later became chairman of the Department of Political Science.

After a 20 year career at UCLA, Kerr returned to his native Beirut to assume the position of President of the American University of Beirut in 1982. Kerr served as AUB president during some of the most intense fighting of the Lebanese civil war, and particularly the Israeli occupation and siege of Beirut. Despite this adversity, Kerr kept the university operational. On January 18, 1984, Kerr was shot and killed near his office. The identity and affiliation of the assassin has never been firmly established. Kevin Matthews of UCLA attributes the murder to "gunmen acting on Iranian orders." ^[1] Other journalists, such as Thomas Friedman, who arrived on the scene only moments after the shooting, have been reluctant to attribute the assassination to any known individual or group.^[2]

However, as his wife wrote in his obituary at the University of Arizona, "The irony, of course, was that they had killed a man who understood and loved the Middle East as much as any foreigner could."^[3] He was the father of Steve Kerr, former professional basketball player and former Phoenix Suns general manager, and Susan van de Ven, who authored a book on the legal processes following her father's death, One Family's Response to Terrorism: A Daughter's Memoir.^[4] Sinologist Hans van de Ven is Kerr's son-in-law.

Notes

1. ^ Kevin Matthews (2009-03-30). "Malcolm Kerr's Middle East". UCLA International Institute. http://www.international.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=106282. Retrieved 20 October 2010. 
2. ^ "Foreign Affairs; Have You Heard?". New York Times. April 12, 1995. http://www.nytimes.com/1995/04/12/opinion/foreign-affairs-have-you-heard.html. Retrieved 25 October 2010. 
3. ^ Biography of Malcolm Kerr
4. ^ Van De Ven, Susan Kerr (2008). One Family's Response to Terrorism: A Daughter's Memoir. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. ISBN 9780815608738. 

External links

• Malcolm Kerr's review of Edward Said's Orientalism.
• New York Times Obituary.

Persondata
Name	Kerr, Malcolm
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	October 8, 1931
Place of birth	Beirut, Lebanon
Date of death	January 18, 1984
Place of death	Beirut, Lebanon