About Us
The CMES promotes the interdisciplinary study of the Middle East on the University of California, Berkeley campus and beyond. From colloquia and conferences, to grant and research programs, to lecture and film series, we organize a wide variety of academic events and extracurricular activities. Feel free to explore our website and join our mailing list for the latest updates on events and programs.
Mission
The Center for Middle Eastern Studies (CMES) at the University of California at Berkeley (UCB) seeks to foster academic pursuit of the Middle East and promote public awareness of the region’s diverse peoples and cultures as well as their connection to wider global contexts. As a federally funded Title VI National Resource Center, the CMES is recognized as one of the country’s most important sources of information about the Arab states, Iran, Israel, Turkey, and the broader Islamic World.
Middle Eastern studies has been taught at UCB for over a century, with the CMES in existence since 1963. More than 100 courses related to the Middle East are regularly offered on campus in two dozen departments and professional schools. Our commitment to deepening knowledge of the Middle East is constantly renewed through the support we offer for specialist faculty research, language teaching and learning, and visiting faculty. A range of endowments allow us to operate grant programs to facilitate the advanced study of the Middle East by UCB faculty and students at all levels.
Affiliates of the CMES include highly specialized faculty, more broadly focused academics, post-doctoral scholars, and graduate and undergraduate students. They come from all over the world to participate in the many colloquia and conferences organized by the Center.
The CMES holds institutional memberships in a number of scholarly organizations in which our faculty and students are most active. We are among the founding members of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA), and are an active member of the American Institute of Yemeni Studies, the American Research Institute in Turkey, the American Institute for Maghrib Studies, and the American Association for Teachers of Turkic Languages.
In addition to academic enrichment on campus, the CMES strives to share its resources with the broadest possible constituency, which currently includes pre- and post-secondary educators and students, independent scholars, the media, business sectors, civic and religious groups, and the general public. In addition to the community and cultural activities it routinely offers, including lecture and film series, seminars, and museum and gallery exhibits, the Middle East Speakers Bureau (scroll down after the jump) and the Office for Resources in International and Area Studies (ORIAS) exist primarily for the purpose of outreach.
As the Middle East assumes an increasingly important role on the world stage, the work of the CMES will continue to grow in relevance. Moreover, we will remain as concerned with contemporary Iran as with Persian literature, and as engaged with the shifting political landscapes in Egypt and Turkey as with Ottoman history, providing a depth and breadth of knowledge unavailable elsewhere.
