As an area of strategic importance and vast complexity, the Middle East is integral to the making of global socio-economic networks, political discourses and the histories of colonialism and empire and has always been a crossroads for states and empires, networks of trade and intellectual discourse. Middle East Studies (MES) adopts a definition of the region that extends beyond traditional geographic parameters by approaching the study of the Middle East of the 21st century as a global phenomenon, one that has generated diasporic communities throughout the world as well as transnational Islamic and other religion-based movements. The multi-disciplinary faculty of the Middle East Studies Program feature research and teaching on diverse topics, countries and peoples in the region, and the curriculum reflects these varied disciplinary groundings.
Upcoming events & news
Please visit our UPCOMING EVENTS web page for the latest updates on lectures, activities and guest speakers related to the Middle East Studies Program.
The seminar series on Human Security in the Middle East, a particular area of concentration of the MES Program, focuses on the complex and multi-dimensional factors that shape the well-being of populations in the region. The MES program will also be hosting the Arab Revolutions and Scholarship Conference, led by Asef Bayat, professor of Sociology and Middle Eastern studies, and Brown’s inaugural Aga Khan Visiting Professorship in Islamic Humanities will be the Keynote Speaker at this important and very timely conference, which will bring together critical scholars to delve into and discuss the relationships between the Arab political upheavals and how we have been studying the Middle East. The list of confirmed participants and the program schedule will be posted on this site soon.
A research cluster at the Watson Institute is exploring human security in the Middle East and North Africa, under the leadership of Middle East Studies Program Director Melani Cammett, an associate professor of in Brown’s Political Science Department. The 2011 Arab Spring and its aftermath call for serious research on the evolving political economies in the Middle East. The initiative reflects Watson Institute’s ongoing extension of its security research beyond such traditional areas as war and weapons and into such non-traditional areas as human security, to address the range of health, environmental, and economic threats to individuals and their societies.
