Middle East Studies (MEST) Certificate

The Middle East Studies Certificate is a credential for students who have studied the history and culture of the Middle East from a variety of disciplinary perspectives.

Requiring a minimum of 12 upper-division credits after the completion of pre-requisites, the MEST Certificate can complement your major or stand alone as a post baccalaureate credential. For students who want to explore the Middle East more deeply, please consider the Middle East Studies Major.

Information on the MEST Certificate

MEST Course Groups

  • Courses with an * can be applied to the capstone requirement.
  • MEST 3000 can be applied to Group A, B or C. 
  • MEST 3900 and MEST 4000 and MEST 4900 can be applied to Group A, B, or C by petition (as they depend on the particular project students complete in those courses).

Frequently asked questions about studying the Middle East at UM-Dearborn

Starting in Fall 2023, there are two ways you can focus on Middle East Studies: the MEST BA or the MEST Certificate.

(Please visit the MEST Major website for more information on this program.)

Learn About Our Faculty

Middle East Studies faculty teach and do research in diverse fields. Click the link below to read more about us and our work.

Associated MEST Faculty

Dr. Hani Bawardi
Dr. Hani Bawardi
Dr. Ara Sanjian
Dr. Ara Sanjian

 

MEST Faculty Fellows, 2023-24

Dr. Hani Bawardi and Dr. Ara Sanian will serve on the MEST Steering Committee and will each have MEST-affiliated projects. Look for updates on those projects in September 2023.

For more information, contact

Prof. Camron Michael Amin
Prof. Camron Michael Amin

Middle East Studies (MEST) discipline and certificate coordinator

Camron Michael Amin, Ph.D.
Professor of Middle East and Iranian Diaspora Studies

Recent Faculty Kudos

Feeding Iran

 

Congratulations to Assistant Professor of Anthropology Rose Wellman on the publication of her new book, Feeding Iran: Shi'i Families and the Making of the Islamic Republic, published by the University of California Press.

From the publisher: Since Iran's 1979 Revolution, the imperative to create and protect the inner purity of family and nation in the face of outside spiritual corruption has been a driving force in national politics. Through extensive fieldwork, Rose Wellman examines how Basiji families, as members of Iran's voluntary paramilitary organization, are encountering, enacting, and challenging this imperative. Her ethnography reveals how families and state elites are employing blood, food, and prayer in commemorations for martyrs in Islamic national rituals to create citizens who embody familial piety, purity, and closeness to God. Feeding Iran provides a rare and humanistic account of religion and family life in the post-revolutionary Islamic Republic that examines how home life and everyday piety are linked to state power.

 

Ara Sanjian

 

 

Associate Professor of History Ara Sanjian was a recent guest on the Scott Horton Show: Just the Interviews podcast, talking about the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Sanjian provides context for the decades-long dispute, dissects the military conflict which reignited in 2020, and offers insight about the international ramifications. Listen to the episode.

Department of Social Sciences

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