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.

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

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

In summer 2016, Margaux Fitoussi, an MTS candidate at Harvard Divinity School, curated a multimedia exhibition in Tunis about the Hara, the city’s historic Jewish neighborhood, centered around a collection of photographs from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In November at CMES, she assembled a smaller version of the exhibition, premiered EL HARA, a short documentary film about the Hara co-directed with her friend Mo Scarpelli and featuring an interview with the celebrated writer Albert Memmi, and gave a talk about the original exhibition in Tunis and viewers’ reactions to it. Read more about Nostalgia, Memory, Place: Margaux Fitoussi on the Hara of Tunis

On February 19, Sheida Dayani, Persian preceptor at Harvard University, participated in a panel discussion about Asghar Farhadi's Academy Award-winning film The Salesman, after a special showing at the Coolidge Corner Theatre. Dayani has worked as an interpreter for Farhadi since 2011. The discussion was moderated by Vahdat Yeganeh, founder and artistic director of Boston Experimental Theatre, and also included Somy Kim, associate teaching professor in the Department of English

Hear opening remarks from donor Hazem Ben-Gacem AB '92, CMES Director William Granara, Margot Gill, Administrative Dean for International Affairs, Harvard University, and Malika Zeghal, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Professor in Contemporary Islamic Thought and Life, Harvard University, at the inaugural celebration of the Tunisia Office of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University.

Arab-American artist Helen Zughaib reflects on Middle East unrest in new exhibition sponsored by the Center for Middle Eastern Studies. Read the story in the Harvard Gazette

Lebanese-American artist Helen Zughaib's work is on display this month at CGIS, under the auspices of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies. Her paintings have been displayed widely in public collections, at the White House, the Library of Congress, and elsewhere; they often lend themselves to diplomatic optimism, even as they depict people in desperate situations: fleeing catastrophe in Syria, leaving home to emigrate to America, selling tiny items in the street to feed their families. Read a review of the exhibition and of Zughaib's accompanying artist talk in