Middle Eastern studies

Middle Eastern studies (sometimes referred to as Near Eastern studies or Arab studies) is a name given to a number of academic programs associated with the study of the history, culture, politics, economies, and geography of the Middle East, an area that is generally interpreted to cover a range of nations extending from North Africa in the west to the Chinese frontier, including Turkey, Israel, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Saudi Arabia and multiple other nations. It is considered a form of area studies, taking an interdisciplinary approach to the study of a region.

The subject was historically regarded as part of Oriental studies, which also included Asian studies and Egyptology and other specialisms in the ancient civilizations of the region; the growth of the field of study in the West is treated at that article. Many academic faculties still cover both areas. Although some academic programs combine Middle Eastern Studies with Islamic Studies, based on the preponderance of Muslims in the region, others maintain these areas of study as separate disciplines.

Contentious Issues

In 1978 Edward Said, a Palestinian American professor of Comparative Literature at Columbia University, published his book Orientalism, in which he accused earlier scholars of a "subtle and persistent Eurocentric prejudice against Arabo-Islamic peoples and their culture", claiming the bias amounted to a justification for imperialism. While other academics such as Irwin challenged Said's conclusions, the book soon became a standard text of literary theory and cultural studies.

American-Israeli historian Martin Kramer in his 2001 book Ivory Towers on Sand: The Failure of Middle Eastern Studies in America (download) accused Middle Eastern studies programs of ignoring the mounting threat of Islamic terrorism. In a Wall Street Journal article published in 2001, Kramer claimed that Middle Eastern studies courses, as they stood, were "part of the problem, not its remedy". In a Foreign Affairs review of the book, F. Gregory Gause said his analysis was, in part, "serious and substantive" but "far too often his valid points are overshadowed by academic score-settling and major inconsistencies."

In 2002, American writer Daniel Pipes established an organisation called Campus Watch to combat what he perceived to be serious problems within the discipline, including "analytical failures, the mixing of politics with scholarship, intolerance of alternative views, apologetics, and the abuse of power over students". He encouraged students to advise the organisation of problems at their campuses. In turn critics within the discipline such as John Esposito accused him of "McCarthyism".

Academic Centers

• Centre for Arab & Islamic Studies (Middle East & Central Asia), The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia
• Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University
• Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Chicago
• Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Lund University at Lund University
• Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies at the University of Michigan
• Center for Modern Oriental Studies in Berlin, Germany‎
• Institut français du Proche-Orient (IFPO), the French Institute for the Near East, in Damascus, Beirut and Amman
• Institute for Middle East Studies at George Washington University
• Italian Institute for Africa and Orient -‎ ISIAO
• London Middle East Institute at School of Oriental and African Studies
• Middle East Center at the University of Pennsylvania
• Middle East Center at the University of Washington
• Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at New York University
• Middle East Institute at Columbia University
• School of Oriental and African Studies at University of London
• Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Texas
• UCLA Center for Near East Studies‎

See also

• Orientalism

External links

• Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies
• Middle East Studies Association
• Middle East Institute