“Mecca is lived, experienced, and documented differently by different people,” began Rosie Bsheer, Assistant Professor of History at Harvard and author of the forthcoming “Archive Wars: Spectacle, Speculation, and the Politics of History in Saudi Arabia,” in her keynote address to the colloquium Mecca: The Lived City, hosted in May by the Center for Middle Eastern Studies and organized by CMES Director William Granara and Gareth Doherty, Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture and Director of the Master in Landscape Architecture Program at the Harvard Graduate School of...

It is impossible to sum up the life of Professor Roger Owen in a few paragraphs; even Roger found it difficult to edit his life in his wonderful memoir. I will focus on being his student and then his friend, and how he taught me how to pass forward his special brand of mentoring.

As a graduate student working on the history of Egypt and Sudan, I made my pilgrimage to Oxford to see Roger and Albert Hourani and receive their wisdom on my project. Albert enjoyed its potential but Roger told me in no uncertain terms that it was too big and would be very difficult (I would like to...

About 11 million Syrians have fled their homes since the outbreak of a civil war in 2011 – including a family that settled in Silver Spring. To bring awareness to the eight-year anniversary of the conflict’s beginning, the brother-sister duo of Mouhanad Al-Rifay and CMES AM candidate Oula Alrifai are screening their documentary about child refugees from their home country this month in the town that took them in 13 years ago. “Tomorrow’s Children,” released in 2018, was directed by Al-...

Jocelyne Dakhlia, Director of Studies, Center for Historical Research, Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales, 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. Youssef Ben Ismail, PhD candidate in Muslim Societies and Cultures in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, covered the lectures for CMES.

In the summer of 1535...

Sultan Althari is a first-year student in the AM in Middle Eastern Studies program.... Read more about Q&A with Sultan Althari

For almost 16 years, Professor William Granara has served as the Director of Modern Language Programs in Harvard's Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. Ozzy Gündüz (G3) and Johannes Makar (G2) sat down with him to reflect on his experiences, research projects and love of Arabic and Arabic literature. Read the complete interview on the NELC website.

CMES is pleased to congratulate this year's graduating class of eighteen students who earned a master's degree in Regional Studies—Middle East and its graduating PhD students.... Read more about Congratulations, CMES Graduates 2018-19!

Jocelyne Dakhlia, Director of Studies, Center for Historical Research, Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales, delivers the second lecture of the 2019 H.A.R. Gibb Arabic and Islamic Studies Lecture Series. Also see a video of Dakhlia's first lecture in the series, and read Youssef Ben Ismail's coverage of both talks.... Read more about Video: Undesired Bodies: Figures of Continuity and Discontinuity in the Mediterranean of Lady Montagu

Jocelyne Dakhlia, Director of Studies, Center for Historical Research, Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales, delivers the first lecture of the 2019 H.A.R. Gibb Arabic and Islamic Studies Lecture Series. Also see a video of Dakhlia's second lecture in the series, and read Youssef Ben Ismail's coverage of both talks.... Read more about Video: The Sultanic Harem in Movement: State Logic and Feminine Mobility in Morocco (1500-1800)

The 2019 Samuel L. and Elizabeth Jodidi Lecture, "Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Nadia Murad in Conversation with Jennifer Leaning," took place on April 3 at the Memorial Church at Harvard. Nadia Murad is the corecipient of the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize, and is a leading advocate for survivors of genocide and sexual violence. Murad’s peaceful life was savagely interrupted in 2014 when Daesh attacked her homeland in Sinjar, with the intention of ethnically cleansing Iraq of all Yazidis. Like many minority groups, the Yazidis have carried the weight of historical persecution. Women in particular...

The Senate voted overwhelmingly on April 10 to confirm retired four-star general John Abizaid, an alumnus of the CMES AM program in Middle Eastern studies, as the US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, filling an important diplomatic post that has been vacant for more than two years. Read the AP News story on Abizaid's confirmation.