Ian Almond

Ian Almond (born 1969, Skipton, England) is a literary scholar and writer. He is Professor of World Literature at Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar.

Educated in the UK, Almond received his PhD in Literature at Edinburgh University. He worked for University of Bari (Italy), Erciyes University and Boğaziçi University (Turkey), Frei University (Germany), and Georgia State University, before coming to Georgetown University School of Foreign Service Qatar in 2013.

His specializations consist of Post-colonial theory, South Asian literature, representations of Islam and world literature. He's particularly known for his works on Islam. He is the author of five books. His books have been translated into several languages, including Arabic, Turkish, Persian, Korean, Indonesian and Bosnian.

As a historian, Almond seems to be most interested in showing how Islam has been an overlooked factor in the formation of Europe. His book Two Faiths, One Banner: When Muslims marched with Christians across Europe's battlegrounds[1] is a history of Muslim-Christian military alliances in Europe. In his History of Islam in German Thought from Leibniz to Nietzsche (ISBN 978-0415897792), Almond shows that Marx, Hegel, Nietzsche and Kant knew a lot more about Islam than they let on. In his work on philosophy, Almond argues that many postmodernists rely on an Orientalist stock of tropes when it comes to writing about Islam. In his writings on literature, Almond seems to be most interested in exposing the repressed spirituality of allegedly secular authors.