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

In this episode of the Fares Center Podcast at the Fletcher School, Roger Owen, A.J. Meyer Professor of Middle East History Emeritus at Harvard and former director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, discusses his recently published volume of memoirs outlining his study of and perspectives on the Middle East, beginning with his first visits to Cairo, Beirut, and Jerusalem in 1955-1956.

CMES awarded a first prize and three honorable mentions in the 2015–16 Harvard College International Photo Contest for photos taken in the Middle East region. Aubrey Stoddard (’17), studying history and government, received first prize for an image she captured during her internship at the Institute for Counter Terrorism during summer 2015 in Israel. Honorable mentions were awarded to archaeology concentrator Jingxiu Jin (’18), for this image of contrasting colors and ancient city walls in Jerusalem, social… Read more about Photo Gallery: 2015-16 Harvard College International Photo Contest

Irene Gendzier, Professor Emeritus, Department of Political Science, Boston University, delivers the 2016 Hilda B. Silverman Memorial Lecture.… Read more about Video: Open Yet Invisible: The US Record on Israel and Palestine, 1948

Adam Shatz, contributing editor at the London Review of Books and a visiting professor at the Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies at New York University, delivers the 2014 Hilda B. Silverman Memorial Lecture.… Read more about Video: Writers or Missionaries: Reporting the Middle East