Professor James Piscatori Professor James Piscatori is Deputy Director of the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies (The Middle East and Central Asia). Professor Piscatori is one of the world's leading authorities on political Islam and the politics, history and international relations of the Middle East. Prior to joining the ANU, Professor Piscatori was at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies and Wadham College, University of Oxford. He has also held senior appointments at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), the Johns Hopkins University, the Council on Foreign Relations (New York), and the University of Wales at Aberystwyth. He is the winner of several international awards and the recipient of international research grants. Professor Piscatori has held membership of many academic and policymaking organisations. He has served on the British Academy committee reviewing Middle Eastern and Islamic studies in Britain. His major works include 'Islam in a World of Nation-States' (Cambridge University Press, 1986), 'Muslim Politics' (Princeton University Press, 1996), and 'Islam, Islamists, and the Electoral Principle in the Middle East' (International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World, Leiden, 2000). He has also produced a number of edited volumes and numerous journal articles, and is a contributing editor to the Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World.