Academic Programs
Program Highlights
Spring COURSES
Making the Modern Middle East | Violence, Ruins, and the Politics of the Past | Ethnography of North Africa | Introduction to Islam | Jews and Muslims in Contemporary Spain | (Im)material Layers in Archives: Affect, Landscapes, and Photographic Agency — enroll in our Spring courses!
Research
MENA faculty members produce cutting-edge research and public scholarship on the contemporary Middle East and North Africa, publishing articles in leading academic journals and books that are widely taught and make an impact both in the scholarly world and in the wider cultural conversation.
Languages
Studying a language of the Middle East and North Africa allows you to have a more intimate perspective on the cultures, histories, and societies of the region. Whether you choose to major in MENA or not, you may enroll in courses in any of the four major languages of the region: Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, Turkish.
PROGRAMMING
We host a range of events over the course of the academic year, including a quarterly New Directions in Middle East & North African Studies lecture; our new MENA Conversations series; the MENA Graduate Student Colloquium; an annual Research Symposium; and events organized by our Working Groups.NEW IN MENA
Working Groups
MENA Interdisciplinary Working Groups are designed to encourage active and emergent research agendas shared by faculty and graduate students, and to facilitate collaboration in Middle East and North African Studies across home departments, colleges, and campuses. 2021-2022 Working Groups:
- Story-telling and Violence: Narratives of Insecurity in the Middle East and North Africa
- Institutional Histories of Aesthetic Forms
- Arabic Literature Reading Group
News and Events
Recent Posts
Upcoming Events
May
16
2022
New Directions Lecture | Media of the Masses: Cassette Culture in...
12:30 PM - 1:30 PM, Evanston
This is a hybrid event Register to participate via Zoom Please join us for the Spring 2022 event in our New Directions in Middle East a...
May
23
2022
MENA Faculty Colloquium | Revolutionary Engineers: Learning, Poli...
12:30 PM - 1:30 PM, No Location
This is a hybrid event Register to attend in-person Participate via Zoom (must have a Northwestern NetID) Presenters Sepehr Vakil is an...
May
26
2022
Returning to Luqmān: Wisdom, Subjectivity, and Islamic Tradition ...
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM, Evanston
This is a hybrid event. No registration is needed to attend in person. Location: Forum Room (2nd Floor), University Library, Evanston...