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.
Contact MEST Coordinator:
Camron Michael Amin, camamin@umich.edu, 313-436-9171
Information on the MEST Certificate
Required pre-requisites: Hist 101 or 102 or 103 and Comp 106
Course options and certificate notes and guidelines
Earning the certificate requires a minimum of 12 upper-division credit hours selected from among Menu A (history) and Menu B (non-history) courses. No more than 9 credit hours can be from Menu A. No more than 6 credit hours can be from Menu B.
All work will be at the 300+ level and only 3 hours may be shared with another major, minor, or certificate. There will be GPA criteria for admission and posting of the certificate.
If you are interested please contact Prof. Amin, camamin@umich.edu, 313-439-9171, 1270 SSB.
Students who complete the MEST should be able to demonstrate:
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The ability to formulate viable research projects in Middle East Studies.
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The ability to contextualize that research within the scholarly literature of Middle East Studies generally and relevant subfields (e.g. History, Anthropology).
MEST Offerings Summer 2023
Pre-req for the MEST major (launching Fall 2023)
- Beginning Arabic II: ARBC 102 (ElMeligi; online)
Menu A (History)
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America and Middle East II: HIST 3632 (Amin; online)
Menu B (Language and Literature)
- Intro to the Quran: ARBC 365 (Dika; online)
For complete course information, check out the Class Schedule.
MEST Faculty
Ara Sanjian
Rose Wellman
Projects our faculty are working on
Michigan Iranian-American Oral History Project
Center for Arab American Studies
Armenian Research Center
Recent Faculty Kudos
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.
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.