Founded in 1963, the Center for Middle Eastern Studies promotes the interdisciplinary study of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) at the University of California, Berkeley, and beyond, raising public awareness of the region’s diverse peoples, languages, cultures and their connection to wider global contexts. A Title VI National Resource Center for more than three decades, UC Berkeley’s CMES is widely recognized as one of the country’s most important sources of knowledge about the Arab world, Iran, Israel, and Turkey.