Professor Ringmar stressed out that the academic study of international relations has for far too long been dominated by theories and concepts that originated from the West. Erik Ringmar is a professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Ibn Haldun Üniversitesi in İstanbul, Turkey. He received his PhD in political science from Yale University in 1993. He taught for 12 years in the Government Department at the London School of Economics, and in China for seven years, where he until 2014 was Zhiyuan Chair professor of international politics at Shanghai Jiaotong University. He has written five books and some 40 academic articles on topics relating to international politics, economic sociology and cultural history. He has recently become interested in cognitive science and phenomenology and is currently thinking of ways in which these fields could enrich our understanding of social life. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx