In a panel conversation with experts and practitioners, this Advanced Training Program on Humanitarian Action (ATHA) podcast explores how the Syrian refugee crisis is reshaping host communities in the Middle East, what challenges remain for the protection of vulnerable populations, and opportunities for advancing humanitarian protection and the integration of refugees into host communities. The panel includes:

• Her Excellency Reem Abu Hassan, Lawyer, human rights advocate, and civil...

Watch video of panel presentations at the April 7-8 symposium After Dark: Nocturnal Landscapes and Public Spaces in the Arabian Peninsula, co-sponsored by the Center for Middle Eastern Studies and the Harvard Graduate School of Design. And read more about the symposium in the Harvard Crimson and the Ciudades Sostenibles (Sustainable Cities) blog.

Martha Myers, former Country Director, Save the Children—Syria, delivers the 2017 Hilda B. Silverman Memorial Lecture.... Read more about Video: "No Place to Raise a Daughter": My Life and Work in the Middle East—A Woman’s Perspective

In his new book, Paradoxes of Green: Landscapes of a City-State, CMES faculty affiliate Gareth Doherty, assistant professor of landscape architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, captures the tension between staying green and being sustainable. Read a Q&A with Doherty in the Weatherhead Center's Epicenter blog.

Maribel Fierro, Research Professor, Centre of Human and Social Sciences, Higher Council for Scientific Research, Madrid, delivers the second lecture of the 2017 H.A.R. Gibb Arabic and Islamic Studies Lecture Series. Also see a video of Fierro's first lecture in the series, and read Arafat Razzaque's coverage of both talks.... Read more about Video: Scholars and Rulers in Al-Andalus: A Christian Emperor for the Muslims? Heraclius in Al-Andalus

Maribel Fierro, Research Professor, Centre of Human and Social Sciences, Higher Council for Scientific Research, Madrid, delivers the first lecture of the 2017 H.A.R. Gibb Arabic and Islamic Studies Lecture Series. Also see a video of Fierro's second lecture in the series, and read Arafat Razzaque's coverage of both talks.... Read more about Video: Scholars and Rulers in Al-Andalus: Averroes' Disgrace in Context

Maribel Fierro, Research Professor at the Centre for Human and Social Sciences of the Spanish National Research Council, and Visiting Scholar at CMES and Senior Scholar at the Islamic Legal Studies Program at HLS in spring 2017, was the distinguished speaker this year for the H.A.R. Gibb Arabic and Islamic Studies Lecture Series, established in 1964 in honor of Sir Hamilton A.R. Gibb, who was a director of CMES as well as University Professor and James Richard Jewett Professor of Arabic at Harvard. Arafat Razzaque, PhD candidate in History and Middle East Studies, covered the lectures for CMES.... Read more about The Middle East and the Islamic West: Maribel Fierro's View of Medieval Spain

CMES awarded a first prize and three honorable mentions in the 2016–17 Harvard College International Photo Contest for photos taken in the Middle East region. All photos were from students’ internships, language study, and travel in the summer of 2016. This year’s first prize went to Kami Choi (’17), a senior at the college pursuing a joint concentration in Government and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. Choi interned at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency headquarters in Amman, Jordan while...

CMES is pleased to congratulate this year's graduating class of thirteen students who earned a master's degree in Regional Studies—Middle East and its three graduating PhD students.... Read more about Congratulations, 2016-17 CMES Graduates!

On April 7-8, 2017, scholars of history, architecture, design, film, and anthropology gathered to explore nighttime landscapes and public spaces in the Arabian Peninsula at the symposium "After Dark: Nocturnal Activities and Public Spaces in the Arabian Peninsula," organized by the Center for Middle Eastern Studies and the Aga Khan Program at the Graduate School of Design. Michelle Y. Raji covered the symposium for the Harvard...

Emrah Yildiz is Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Middle East and North African Studies at Northwestern University. He completed his PhD in Anthropology and Middle East Studies at Harvard in 2016.... Read more about Q&A with Emrah Yildiz

This semester, CMES students Anna Boots, Chloe Bordewich, Blaire Byg, Alice Duesdieker, Eleanor Ellis, Ethan Mefford, Kim ­Quarantello, Hannah Riggs, and Becca Wadness participated in events to welcome Syrian refugees who have recently resettled in Lowell, Massachusetts.... Read more about CMES Students Help Welcome Young Refugees

Roger Owen, A.J. Meyer Professor of Middle Eastern History Emeritus and a former CMES director, first encountered the Middle East as a young soldier during his national military service in Cyprus from 1955 to 1956, during which time he visited Cairo, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Beirut. He has lived and traveled throughout the region, and spent his academic and professional life at Oxford and Harvard, where he taught, studied, made friends, and tried to understand the Middle East through its politics, economic life, history, and popular culture. He kept an almost daily journal recording his thoughts and feelings, and since 1986 wrote a regular op-ed column for the Arabic newspaper Al-Hayat.... Read more about The Book of Roger