Ricardo René Larémont is Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Sociology at SUNY Binghamton and a Non-Resident Scholar at the Center for African Studies at Howard University, where he contributes to research and programming on African politics, governance, and international affairs. Over nearly three decades at SUNY Binghamton, he built a career that combined rigorous scholarship, dedicated undergraduate and graduate teaching, and sustained academic leadership. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from Yale University and his J.D. from the New York University School of Law, a training that has deeply shaped his long-standing interest in legal systems, constitutional authority, and the political uses of law in both democratic and non-democratic settings. His scholarly work examines Islamist movements, Islamic legal traditions, and state–society relations in Africa and the Middle East through a comparative and historically grounded lens. He is the author of the textbook Political Islam: Movements, Ideologies, and Governance in Comparative Perspective (Routledge 2026), which offers a systematic comparative analysis of Islamist ideas, organizational forms, and governing practices across the Muslim world. His earlier books include Islam and the Politics of Resistance in Algeria; Islamic Law and Politics in Northern Nigeria; Revolution, Revolt, and Reform in North Africa; Borders, Nationalism, and the African State; and The Causes of War and the Consequences of Peacekeeping in Africa.
Professor Larémont will discuss his newly published book, offering a comprehensive analysis of the origins, evolution, and contemporary expressions of Political Islam across the Middle East, North Africa, and the broader Muslim world. The work examines the intellectual foundations, governance models, and political trajectories of key Islamist movements, while situating them within debates over modernity, state power, and global order. Unique among books in the field, Political Islam: Movements, Ideologies, and Governance in Comparative Perspective combines intellectual genealogy with detailed case studies and comparative frameworks, enabling students to grasp both the diversity and coherence of Islamist thought.
Co-hosted by the Department of African, Middle Eastern, and South Asian Literatures and Languages; Center for African Studies; and Rutgers Global