About Emile Bustani
Emile Bustani was born into a poor Lebanese family
in 1907, in the twilight years of the Ottoman Empire. When he died in an airplane crash in 1963, he was
one of the most influential businessmen and philanthropists in the Middle East and a leading
figure in the politics of the region.
Emile Bustani looked less to the glories of an Arab
past than to the possibilities of a dynamic Arab renaissance. He combined the technological skills he learned as a civil engineer student at MIT (SB 1933) and his experience gained by working for the Iraq Petroleum Company, with the ideals of nineteenth-century philanthropists. He used the fortune acquired through CAT, the contracting and trading company he founded in 1936, to help revitalize Lebanon and neighboring countries.
Financial success enabled Emile Bustani to turn his attention to Lebanese politics in the early years of his country's independence after World War II. He was elected a member of Parliament in Lebanon in 1951,
an office he held until his death. During the civil
strife which plagued Lebanon in 1958, and led to the deployment of United States marines in the country,
he played a crucial role in overcoming the crisis. He was one of the few eminent figures in the Middle East
to remain on good terms with almost all the Arab leaders of his day, his counsel much valued throughout the region. Had he lived, many believe he would have become President of Lebanon. Few would have been more likely to reconcile the irreconcilable. His charm, honesty, good nature, and gift for friendship made him an irresistible negotiator.
In addition to his business and political career, Emile
Bustani devoted himself to higher education in the Arab world. His special interest was the American University
of Beirut, the leading institution of higher learning in the region, where he had taken his first undergraduate degree
in 1928. He was a member of the AUB Board of Trustees and President of its Alumni Association. His philanthropic activities on behalf of the AUB and his fierce commitment to modern liberal education for men and women were enormous. That commitment has been sustained by his family to this day.
Mrs. Laura Bustani and Mrs. Myrna Bustani, Emile Bustani's widow and daughter, wishing to honor his
memory and his deep and lasting contribution to higher education and to peace in the Middle East, established in 1985 the Emile Bustani Middle East Seminar at his American university home, the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology.
The Bustani Middle East Seminar is organized under the auspices of the MIT Center for International Studies, which conducts research on contemporary international issues and provides an opportunity for faculty and students to share perspectives and exchange views. Each year the Bustani Seminar invites scholars, journalists, consultants, and other experts from the Middle East,
Europe, and the United States to MIT to present recent research findings on contemporary politics, society and culture, and economic and technological development in
the Middle East.
The Bustani Seminar complements MIT's teaching and research in the Middle East,
which cover such fields as history, political science, economics, anthropology
architecture, urban studies, management, and engineering. It is open to
the entire MIT community and to the general public. The Bustani Seminar
is chaired by Philip
S. Khoury, Ford International Professor of History and Associate Provost at MIT.
The inaugural lecture in the seminar series was
delivered on October 3, 1985, by Albert Hourani, of
the University of Oxford. His lecture "Lebanon: The Development of a Political Society" was published in 1986 by the MIT Center for International Studies.
Previous Speakers
Others who have addressed the Bustani Seminar, and
their affiliation at the time, include:
| Ervand Abrahamian |
Baruch College, CUNY |
| Feroz Ahmad |
University of Massachusetts |
| Leila Ahmed |
University of Massachusetts |
| Lamis Andoni |
Harvard University |
| Bernard Avishai |
KPMG, Boston |
| Sadek El-Azem |
University of Damascus |
| Andrew Bacevich |
Boston University |
| Ali Banuazizi |
Boston College |
| James Bill |
The College of William & Mary |
| Barbara Bodine |
Harvard University |
| Nora Boustany |
The Washington Post |
| Michaelle Browers |
Wake Forest University |
| L. Carl Brown |
Princeton University |
| Gilbert Burnham |
Johns Hopkins University |
| Naomi Chazan |
Hebrew University of Jerusalem |
| Dominique Chevallier |
University of Paris-Sorbonne |
| Helena Cobban |
Brookings Institution |
| David Commins |
Dickinson College |
| Georges Corm |
Paris |
| Eric Davis |
Rutgers University |
| Alexander de Waal |
World Peace Foundation |
| Assia Djebar |
Louisiana State University |
| Charles Dunbar |
Simmons College |
| Mamoun Fandy |
Georgetown University |
| Leila Farsakh |
CIS, MIT |
| F. Gregory Gause III |
University of Vermont |
| Irene Gendzier |
Boston University |
| Fawaz Gerges |
Sarah Lawrence College |
| Fatma Muge Gocek |
University of Michigan |
| Nilüfer Göle |
Bogazici University |
| Alain Gresh |
Le Monde Diplomatique |
| Leon Hadar |
American University |
| Yvonne Haddad |
University of Massachusetts |
| Arthur Hertzberg |
Columbia University |
| Nadia Hijab |
United Nations |
| Raymond Hinnebusch |
College of St. Catherine |
| Christopher Hitchens |
The Nation Magazine |
| Cecil Hourani |
London |
| Michael Hudson |
Georgetown University |
| Rima Khalaf Hunaidi |
United Nations |
| Resat Kasaba |
University of Washington |
| Farhad Kazemi |
New York University |
| Nikki Keddie |
UCLA |
| Herbert Kelman |
Harvard University |
| Samir Khalaf |
AUB/Princeton University |
| Sulayman Khalaf |
Harvard University |
| Rashid Khalidi |
University of Chicago |
| Walid Khalidi |
Harvard University |
| Rami G. Khouri |
Daily Star, Beirut |
| Eberhard Kienle |
Université d'Aix-Marseille |
| Judith Kipper |
Brookings Institution |
| Joseph Kostiner |
Tel Aviv University |
| Bruce Lawrence |
Duke University |
| William Lawrence |
North Africa Program for International Crisis Group |
| Ann Lesch |
Villanova University |
| Ian Lustick |
University of Pennsylvania |
| Robert Mabro |
Oxford University |
| Ussama Makdisi |
Rice University |
| Kanan Makiya |
Brandeis University |
| Chibli Mallat |
Université Saint-Joseph |
| Robert Malley |
International Crisis Group |
| Moshe Maoz |
Hebrew University |
| Serif Mardin |
Bogazici University |
| Afaf Lutfi al-Sayyid Marsot |
UCLA |
| Fatema Mernissi |
Mohammed V University |
| Dalia Mogahed |
Gallup Center for Muslim Studies |
| Marwan Muasher |
Carnegie Endowment |
| Richard Murphy |
Council on Foreign Relations |
| Salim Nasr |
Ford Foundation |
| Augustus Richard Norton |
United States Military Academy |
| Roger Owen |
Oxford/Harvard |
| Matti Peled |
Tel Aviv University |
| Rudolph Peters |
University of Amsterdam |
| Kenneth Pollack |
Brookings Institution |
| William B. Quandt |
Brookings Institution |
| Abdul-Karim Rafeq |
College of William & Mary |
| André Raymond |
Université de Provence |
| Nadim Rouhana |
Fletcher School, Tufts University |
| Olivier Roy |
CNRS, Paris |
| Sarah Roy |
CIS, MIT |
| Dankwart Rustow |
City University of New York |
| Malise Ruthven |
British Broadcasting Corporation |
| Yahya Sadowski |
Brookings Institution |
| Emile Sahliyeh |
University of North Texas |
| Nawaf Salam |
American University of Beirut |
| Ghassan Salamé |
University of Paris |
| Paul Salem |
American University of Beirut |
| Harold Saunders |
American Enterprise Institute |
| Patrick Seale |
The Observer, London |
| Elaine Sciolino |
The New York Times |
| Anthony Shadid |
The Boston Globe |
| Hanan Al-Shaykh |
London |
| Jonathan Shimshoni |
Princeton University |
| Gary Sick |
Columbia University |
| Marion Farouk-Sluglett |
University of Swansea |
| Peter Sluglett |
University of Durham |
| Ahdaf Soueif |
Arab Cultural Foundation, London |
| Charles Smith |
Wayne State University |
| Denis Sullivan |
Northeastern University |
| Riad Tabbarah |
Washington, D.C. |
| Salim Tamari |
Institute of Jerusalem Studies |
| Shibley Telhami |
Cornell University |
| Mark Tessler |
University of Michigan |
| Bassam Tibi |
University of Gottingen |
| Abdullah Toukan |
Amman, Jordan |
| Fawwaz Traboulsi |
Lebanese American University |
| Brian Urquhart |
Ford Foundation |
| Robert Vitalis |
University of Pennsylvania |
| John Voll |
University of New Hampshire |
| Ibrahim Warde |
Le Monde Diplomatique |
| John Waterbury |
Princeton University/AUB |
| John Zogby |
Zogby International |
| Marvin Zonis |
University of Chicago |
