Middle East Studies at Brown University

Middle East Studies at Brown University promotes knowledge, understanding, and informed discussion about the Middle East, Islam, and Muslim societies through research, teaching, and public engagement.

Housed in the Watson Institute and supported by the Dean of Faculty, Middle East Studies is in a transition period of rapid growth led by Beshara Doumani, who launched the Middle East Studies Initiative when he joined the Brown faculty in 2012.  The Initiative seeks to integrate Middle East and Islamic Studies into the larger streams of intellectual life by building a cutting-edge research community, producing innovative programming, and offering an exciting array of courses and opportunities for undergraduate concentrators and graduate students.  Eschewing the hothouse legacy structures of Oriental and Area Studies models of the last two centuries, Middle East Studies at Brown University is organized around key themes and driven by signature initiatives that tap into Brown’s tradition of interdisciplinary, critical, and engaged scholarship.

Key Themes include

• Partition, Displacement and the Making of the Modern World
• Political Economy of Development and Social Movements
• Islamic Humanities
• Arts, Public Culture, and Social Change 

Signature Initiatives Include

• Digital Islamic Humanities
• New Directions in Palestinian Studies
• Aga Khan Professorship
• Engaged Scholarship in Zones of Conflict
• Displacement and the Making of the Modern World