Arab News Blog

Richard Antoun

Last Friday, like many of my fellow anthropologists, I was attending the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association in Philadelphia. I was excited to be back in Philly, where I went through the graduate program in anthropology in the 1970s. At a session on Saturday I heard the alarming news that emeritus Prof. Richard Antoun had been killed the day before. Following on the continual newsworthy but ethically unworthy chain of killings in the media spotlight, this was all the more a shock since it involved someone whose work I knew and whom I had met at previous professional meetings.

Details are emerging about who did it, but the “why” is no doubt locked away in the mind of the graduate student who committed the crime. I attach information from a memorial presented on EphBlog:

Student Held in Killing of New York Professor

A 46-year-old Binghamton University graduate student from Saudi Arabia was charged on Saturday with killing a retired anthropology professor, a specialist in Islamic and Middle Eastern studies, with whom he had worked, the authorities said.

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