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

MEST Faculty

Ghassan Abou-Zeineddine

Assistant Professor of English Literature

Imran Aijaz

Associate Professor of Philosophy

Hani Bawardi

Associate Professor of History

Rifaat Dika

Lecturer IV of Arabic Studies

Sally Howell

Associate Professor of History

Ara Sanjian

Associate Professor of History; Director of Armenian Research Center

Ronald Stockton

Professor of Political Science (retired December 2020)

Rose Wellman

Associate Professor of Anthropology; Associate Director, Center for Arab American 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.

Videos from MEST faculty events

Department of Social Sciences

2140 - Social Sciences Building
4901 Evergreen Road
Dearborn, MI 48128
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Phone: 313-593-5096
Fax: 313-593-5645