The ABI mourns the loss of its former director, Theodor Hanf.
| © Helga DickowTheodor Hanf shaped the direction and ethos of the ABI from its earliest years. He was a creative force, a visionary, a scientist through and through, and a cosmopolitan. He was always curious, engaged and tolerant even of views he did not share. For many years, he was the intellectual driving force behind the ABI, whilst also acting as a scientific diplomat.
He had an extensive global network of academic and political contacts. At a time when this was far from being a popular undertaking and was a labour-intensive undertaking, Theodor Hanf travelled the world and forged Lasting relationships. He studied diverse societies, often marked by conflict, and explored ways of living together peacefully.
Drawing on his research, he developed theoretical approaches to comparative conflict studies. He felt equally at home in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. He regularly published alongside academics from the Global South at a time when this was still a rare exception. Supporting the next generation of international academics was a cause close to his heart.
Theodor Hanf on a field research trip in Lebanon, 1979.
| © Angela HerrmannThe ABI owes an immense debt of gratitude to Professor Hanf. Current and former staff, the Executive Board and other committees will honour the memory of our former long-serving Director, who passed away on 7 August 2026.
In honour of Professor Hanf, and with the kind permission of Nomos-Verlag, we share a laudatio speech by Professor Peter Molt marking the 70th birthday of Theodor Hanf. It was originally published in a volume on the same occasion.
Comparing Cultures and Conflicts: For Theodor Hanf on the Occasion of His 70th Birthday
PETER MOLT
"When Theodor Hanf started working at the recently founded “Arbeitsstelle für Kulturwissenschaftliche Forschung” (Centre for Cultural Research), forerunner of the Arnold Bergstraesser Institute, in the early 1960s, his first research projects were on the educational systems of Rwanda and Lebanon. This brought home to him the fact that educational systems can play a role in social tension – and he spent the next 45 years of scientific endeavour examining conflict in culturally and religiously plural societies.
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Well before his peers, he underscored the relevance of sociocultural determinants, factors most social scientists long ignored in favour of socioeconomic interpretations. Yet, he never succumbed to the allure of a purely culturalist paradigm. Theodor Hanf’s synoptic approach draws on another defining feature of his research. No matter the subject, he is first and foremost an empirical and comparative scientist."