Middle East

The study of the region extending from Morocco to Kazakhstan since the rise of Islam is coordinated, encouraged, and stimulated at the University of Chicago by the Center for Middle Eastern Studies (CMES). Established in 1965, the CMES has been supported by the Divisions of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Chicago and by grants from the U.S. Department of Education and the Mellon Foundation for more than thirty years.

Founded in 1946, the Middle East Institute is the oldest Washington-based institution dedicated solely to the study of the Middle East. Its founders, scholar George Camp Keiser and former US Secretary of State Christian Herter, laid out a simple mandate: “to increase knowledge of the Middle East among the citizens of the United States and to promote a better understanding between the people of these two areas.”

This site has a strong links page with a variety of resources, including bibliographic and teaching resources, electronic publications and projects, and more.

"an international association organized to encourage and promote research and scholarly understanding of Syria in all periods and in all academic disciplines."

This workshop serves as a multidisciplinary platform where University students in the humanities and social sciences can discuss a wide array of academic questions related to the history, culture, societies and politics of the Middle East. As an area studies workshop, we accept papers dealing with this broad range of subjects throughout the geography of the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia, and over a time span extending from the advent of Islam to the present. One of the workshop’s main concerns is to bridge the existing gap between factual and theoretical approaches to studies of the Middle East.

This interdisciplinary workshop focuses on every aspect of the early modern experience, circa 1350-1800. It encompasses the entirety of the Mediterranean and European worlds as well as their rivals and colonial possessions.

The Workshop has as its focus the Eastern Mediterranean World from 330 - 1453 CE, as approached from a variety of viewpoints, including Late Rome, Byzantium, Early Islam, Slavic Studies, Crusader Periods, and Eastern Church Studies. We sponsor approximately four to five graduate student and faculty speakers each quarter, as well as invited guest lecturers.
(From their website)

Bringing together faculty and students from across various disciplines, the Jewish Studies and the Hebrew Bible Workshop seeks to provide a forum for vibrant discourse and critical reflection on work and topics that may range across the field of Judaica. From Jewish language, literature, and music to religion and philosophy, this workshop looks to engage students and faculty interested in Jewish studies while stretching them to think beyond the strictures that currently typify their subdisciplines.

Our members-- either medievalists or those with an interest in the medieval period-- come from a wide variety of disciplines including Art History, History, English, Music, Divinity, Linguistics, Romance and Germanic Languages and Literatures, and NELC (Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations).While workshop sessions tend to focus on the European Middle Ages, c. 500-1500, we have sponsored speakers on related areas such as Islamic and Byzantine studies. (From their website)