History and Mission

The principal mission of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies (CMES) at the University of California at Berkeley is to enhance awareness of the Middle East and of its diverse peoples and cultures. The center promotes both specialized knowledge and public understanding of this crucial area of the world, which includes the Arab states, Turkey, Iran, and Israel.

For many years the U.S. Department of Education has recognized UC Berkeley as one of the most significant universities in the United States in terms of Middle East area offerings. Drawing on all the resources of the Berkeley campus, CMES has become the most important sources of information about the Middle East and the Islamic World in the Western United States.

Throughout its nearly 35 years, CMES has enriched Berkeley's Middle East-related offerings and helped coordinate them into an integrated whole. Middle East Studies has been taught at UC Berkeley for more than 100 years. But the establishment of CMES as a federally funded National Resource Center (NRC) in 1965 greatly increased its importance as an area of study, and in 1979 CMES was reorganized as a fully independent interdisciplinary and interdepartmental unit. Finally in 1989, the UC Regents recognized CMES as an Organized Research Unit, and placed it within the then newly created Deanship of International and Area Studies.

The center aims to reach the broadest possible constituency, working with a variety of organizations and individuals to discover new avenues for scholarly outreach and cooperation. As the lone Middle East center in Northern California, CMES also establishes and reinforces links to other colleges and universities in the region with more modest Middle East programs.

Personnel affiliated with the center now include 15 highly specialized faculty, more than 35 partially specialized academics, and 150 graduate students. More than 100 courses relating to the Middle East are now offered on a regular basis on the Berkeley campus in two dozen departments and professional schools. Annual enrollments in Middle East-related courses now exceed 4,000 students.

The commitment of CMES to reach a wide variety of Californians — pre- and post-secondary educators and students, independent scholars, the media, business, and the general public — is evident in the center’s many activities. These include the following:

- Actively supporting the teaching and research of UC Berkeley's Middle East specialist faculty, graduate students, and scholars through research and travel grants.

- Increasing the availability of Middle East-related courses by helping bring visiting faculty to academic departments and professional schools without resident Middle East specialists.

- Organizing and sponsoring lecture series, colloquia, film series, seminars, museum exhibits, and major research conferences.

- Enhancing Middle East language teaching and learning at UC Berkeley through direct and indirect support of both teachers and students.

- Promoting interdisciplinary and collaborative work through joint sponsorship with other research units of intellectual programs and visiting scholars.

- Collaborating with UC Berkeley's outreach office and other educational organizations to serve elementary, secondary, and post-secondary teachers and students.

- Supporting Middle East-related community and cultural activities and programs.

- Initiating programs to further the development of Middle East Studies at UC Berkeley and within the community at large.

 

Scholarly Programs

One of the principal goals of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies is to support independent research by Berkeley faculty, visiting scholars, and graduate students. CMES funds come from a variety of sources and are allocated competitively on an annual basis to academic personnel in a variety of disciplines for both collaborative and individual projects. CMES funds are also used to support general center operations and to conduct educational outreach.

- U.S. Department of Education National Resource Center

CMES has received competitive three-year cycle grants from the U.S. Department of Education (USED) since 1979, and has participated since then in the USED Title VI Program as a National Resource Center (NRC). Status as an NRC (one of approximately a dozen recognized for their excellence throughout the United States) provides the center with partial financial support for many of its programs devoted to public understanding of the Middle East and the Islamic World. These programs include visiting faculty and language instruction in Middle East studies; pre- and post-secondary educational outreach programs; publication of the biannual CMES newsletter; lecture, symposia, conferences, film series, and cultural activities; faculty travel grants for research and conference participation; and FLAS fellowships.

- Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowships

These annual fellowships are awarded on a competitive basis to incoming and continuing graduate students and provide for payment both of tuition fees and a generous stipend.

- Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Research /Travel Grants

An endowment from the Mellon Foundation permits CMES to offer travel grants to faculty, lecturers, visiting scholars, and graduate students. Small grants are offered in two categories: research/travel grants, and conference travel grants.

- The Sultan Endowment for Arab Studies

This endowment gift from the Saudi-based Sultan bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud is dedicated to broadening understanding of the Arab Islamic World. It supports Center activities plus sponsors new initiatives by funding research, visiting scholars/graduate fellows, and outreach via conferences and Arabic media acquisition. This endowment gift from the Saudi-based Sultan bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud is dedicated to broadening understanding of the Arab Islamic World. It supports Center activities plus sponsors new initiatives by funding research, visiting scholars/graduate fellows, and outreach via conferences and Arabic media acquisition.

- The Al-Falah Program

Established in 1997, this endowment resulted from the generosity of Xenel Industries, Ltd., the family of Sheikh Salahuddin Yusuf Hamza Abdeljawad, Saudi Arabian alumni, and friends of Berkeley. The Al-Falah program supports better understanding of Islam, Muslim culture in the U.S., and economic development in the Islamic world, with a particular emphasis on the transfer of technology and knowledge between Saudi and the U.S.

Public Programs and Service

Another principal goal of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies is to promote understanding of the Middle East through public programs aimed at UC Berkeley faculty, students and scholars, and members of the general public in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond. CMES-sponsored programs and special events take place throughout the year and include lectures, symposia, conferences, film series, cultural events, and social events.

- Lecture Series and Events

- Educational Outreach

The educational outreach programs of CMES serve California school teachers and school children through a variety of media. In collaboration with Berkeley's Office of Resources for International and Area Studies (ORIAS), and often with other area-studies units, the center coordinates one-day workshops or one-week teacher institutes to address subjects of importance to elementary, middle-school, or high-school students. The recent federally funded Interactive University Project, which addressed Internet-based approaches to studying Islam as a global religion, involved both students and teachers in creating curriculum modules to be utilized on-line. Over the past fifteen years, CMES has created thirteen curriculum packets designed to assist pre-collegiate teaching about various aspects of Middle East culture. These popular packets are available through the ORIAS office.

- CMES in the Bay Area

Since they are free and open to the public, all scholarly events sponsored by CMES have an outreach component. Generally, about one-quarter to one-third of the people attending CMES-sponsored lectures — and most of the people attending CMES-sponsored film, music, and museum programs — come from the general Bay Area community. To increase awareness of its activities, the center's biannual newsletter reaches a Middle East-related community of 1,700 people throughout the United States, Europe, and the Middle East. In addition, the center's lecture and special-events mailing list includes more than 350 people who do not study or work on the Berkeley campus. CMES also responds to community requests for speakers on a wide variety of subjects. Recently, the center has made available specialists to speak to groups as diverse as an adult community center and a pre-natal care facility.

- CMES in the Nation and Abroad

CMES maintains ties to many national and international organizations. Its status as a National Resource Center fosters cooperative relationships with other major Middle East centers and programs across the country. CMES holds institutional membership in the following scholarly organizations: the American Institute of Yemeni Studies, the Middle East Studies Association (as a founding member), the American Research Institute in Turkey, the American Institute for Maghribi Studies, and the American Association for Teachers of Turkish. The Department of Near Eastern Studies holds memberships in the Center for Arabic Study Abroad, the American Research Center in Egypt, and American Association for Teachers of Persian.

- CMES on the Web

The Internet provides still another forum for connecting CMES to scholars, students, teachers, and interested people throughout the world. The center's extensive Website provides information on the center, its public programs, research projects and programs, and links to other sites of interest to our many constituencies. These include the College of Environmental Design's SPIRO database of images (including more than 1,000 images of art and architecture from the Islamic World), the Islamic Cities Historic Map Collection (ICHMC), the ORIAS Website containing the instructional modules for learning about Islam through the Internet, information on Berkeley's extensive Islamica and Judaica library collections, links to all other major university-based Middle East Center Websites worldwide, and Middle East country Websites. CMES's Website receives nearly 30,000 "hits" per year.

Middle East Degree Programs and Overseas Study

Students at UC Berkeley benefit from CMES through its important role in coordinating course work and degree programs that focus on the Middle East. As part of this process, the International and Area Studies Teaching Programs Office administers the Middle East Undergraduate Major, which was founded in 1981 to meet the needs of students primarily interested in interdisciplinary approaches to the contemporary Middle East. As part of this degree program, after completing required prerequisite courses, students work with an advisor to self-select courses that meet their intellectual interests from a variety of departments. In 1999-2000, a new CMES-designed undergraduate minor was also introduced to meet the needs of a growing number of students with a strong commitment to Middle East Studies, but who are unable to complete an entire major program during their undergraduate years.

Students interested in the language, literature, culture and religions of the Middle East and Islamic World can pursue undergraduate and graduate degrees in the Department of Near Eastern Studies. The department offers nine different specialty programs, including Islamic studies, language pedagogy, art and archaeology of the ancient Middle East, Egyptology, etc. Further disciplinary degrees with emphasis on the Middle East can be pursued in Anthropology, Agriculture and Resource Economics, Art History, Comparative Literature, French, Geography, History, Music, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology, and in professional programs in Journalism, Public Health, and Environmental Design. The Joint Graduate Program in Jewish Studies, a cooperative Ph.D. program of UC Berkeley and the Graduate Theological Union, admits students whose interests range from Talmudic studies to contemporary Israeli poetry. The recent addition of a joint M.A. program in International Studies with several of the UC Berkeley’s professional schools offers a Middle East focus for professional students which includes a language component.

As part of a system-wide education-abroad initiative, the Berkeley Programs for Study Abroad Office offers undergraduate students several semester or year-abroad programs in the Middle East: American University in Cairo in Egypt, the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in Israel, and Middle East Technical University or Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey. Students undertake prescribed language course work at Berkeley prior to application to one of these programs.

Middle East Library and Museum Resources at Berkeley

The work of CMES is greatly facilitated by the extensive library resources of the Berkeley campus in Middle Eastern subjects. The Middle East Collection of UC Berkeley’s Main Library is divided between Islamica and Judaica/Hebraica.

Berkeley's extensive Islamica Collection comprises more than 100,000 volumes in Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and other less commonly collected languages such as Kurdish, Azeri, and the Berber languages. A recent endowment from the Assyrian community has provided funds for new purchases in that language. More than 475 periodicals are currently included in the Islamica collection, and the Library also holds complete sets of many more archived periodicals. The collection is particularly strong in the areas of literature, religious studies, society, politics and government; and it contains an especially large group of linguistics source materials. Persian-language materials in all disciplines published outside of Iran are also very numerous. The Bancroft Library holds rare nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century manuscripts and a special selection of maps.

The Judaica/Hebraica Collection supports the research and institutional activities of faculty, scholars, and students in a number of interdisciplinary fields, as well as the Joint Graduate Program in Jewish Studies with the Graduate Theological Union. The 50,000-volume collection has several foci: Near Eastern languages and literature; Talmudic studies, including the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds and subsequent texts and commentaries; rabbinical, medieval and modern Jewish history throughout the world; modern Jewish thought; and comparative literature, including works in Hebrew, Yiddish, English, and other languages. The Bancroft Library contains 400 rare and valuable works, including a fourteenth-century Rashi manuscript. Boalt Hall School of Law's library contains the Robbins Collection of approximately 5,000 volumes, which is particularly strong in early editions of responsa and Jewish codes.

Overall planning for collection development and vendor relations for these central collections is overseen by Near Eastern Librarian Dr. Hamid Mahamedi. Islamica Curatorial Assistant Shayee Khanaka supervises cataloging, assists with materials selection, and maintains the Islamica Collection's extensive Website. Judaica Librarian Vivienne Roumani-Denn is responsible for collection development, vendor relations, and the Judaica Website. Professional library staff work closely with faculty, scholars, and graduate students to assure that collection development closely meets the needs of these constituents.

In addition to these central collections, the Department of Near Eastern Studies (NES) supports a few modest library collections. The Claus Baer Egyptology Library was created from the bequest of the Baer family, and comprises several thousand volumes — the core of an excellent collection. The NES Media Library contains slides, videos, and other media documentation of the Near East from ancient to modern times.

One further resource available to scholars affiliated with CMES is the Phoebe Apperson Hearst Museum of Anthropology, which contains major collections of Middle East archaeological materials. Along with the Reisner Collection of more than 18,000 artifacts from Egyptian Old Kingdom excavation sites (such as Ballas, el Ahaiwah, and Giza), the Hearst Museum collection includes groups of cuneiform tablets, Sassanian cylinder seals, and Luristan bronzes. It also includes ethnographic materials from throughout the Middle East and Islamic World, including daily-use articles, clothing, and musical instruments from North Africa, Turkey, Afghanistan and Arabia; carpets from Iran, Turkey, and Central Asia; religious articles from Syria and Iran; and military armaments from Iran and Iraq.