Middle East Studies

Welcome to Middle East Studies at American University!

Middle East Studies @ AU builds ties across the different schools at American University and connects faculty and graduate and undergraduate students. We are interdisciplinary, inclusive, and open to all who wish to contribute to the scholarly community on the Middle East at AU. Browse our Web site to see how American University from its location in Washington, DC, opens a unique vantage on the cultures, history, and politics of this complex region. Click here for our full mission statement.

December 9, 2009 MES @ AU Colloquium:

Dec. 9, 2009 - Graduate MES @ AU (and Beyond): Opportunities & Community Building 

This meeting is for Graduate students and Undergraduates considering graduate school, to discuss the experience of studying Middle East studies here at AU, to share study strategies, building your CV, study abroad, language study, funding and more. Check back to this space as the event approaches for more details.

Future Colloquia

Jan. 20, 2010 - Iran: The Future of the Opposition and the Islamic Republic Guest Speakers Karim Sadjadpour, The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; and Afshin Molavi, New American Foundation.

Karim Sadjadpour is an associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He joined Carnegie after four years as the chief Iran analyst at the International Crisis Group based in Tehran and Washington, D.C. A leading researcher on Iran, Sadjadpour has conducted dozens of interviews with senior Iranian officials, and hundreds with Iranian intellectuals, clerics, dissidents, paramilitaries, businessmen, students, activists, and youth, among others. He is a regular contributor to BBC World TV and radio, CNN, National Public Radio, and PBS NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, and has written for the Economist, Washington Post, New York Times, International Herald Tribune, and New Republic.

Afshin Molavi is a Senior Research Fellow of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation. He is the author of Persian Pilgrimages: Journeys Across Iran (Norton, 2002), which was nominated for the Thomas Cook literary travel book of the year and described by Foreign Affairs as “a brilliant tableau of today’s Iran.” A former Dubai-based correspondent for the Reuters news agency and a regular contributor to The Washington Post from Iran, Mr. Molavi has covered the Middle East and Washington for a wide range of international publications. His articles and op-eds have appeared in The New York Times, Foreign Affairs, The Financial Times, Smithsonian, National Geographic, BusinessWeek, The New Republic, Foreign Policy, The Christian Science Monitor, The Nation, the Journal of Commerce, and The Wilson Quarterly, among other publications. He comments regularly on Iran and the Middle East on CNN, the BBC, National Public Radio, and other broadcast outlets.

Feb. 10, 2010 - Languages & MES @ AU: Opportunities & Community Building

Mar. 10, 2010 - topic TBA

April 7, 2010 - topic TBA

May 12, 2010 - topic TBA