February 2011
UNC professor Andrew Reynolds to advise Egypt and Tunisia.
“Egypt After the Uprising” — WUNC’s Frank Stasio interviews Carl Ernst and Nadia Yaqub on “The State of Things.”
Think Fast Forum: UNC Faculty on Egypt in Crisis – A panel discussion on the recent events in Cairo, featuring Carl Ernst (Religious Studies), Nadia Yaqub (Asian Studies), and Doria El Kerdany (Asian Studies). Audio of the presentations here.
A new study by UNC professor Charles Kurzman shows that the number of Muslim-Americans who perpetrated or were arrested for terrorist acts declined sharply in 2010. Read the press release or the report.
8th Annual Duke-UNC Graduate Islamic Studies Conference: “How Ideas Win: Formations of Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy In Muslim Practice and Thought”, February 19-20, 2011. Read more.
December 2010
Dr. John van Aalst leads a team from the UNC Department of Surgery to help children in the West Bank.  Read more.
November 2010
UNC Islamic Studies undergraduate Laurence Deschamps-Laporte wins Rhodes Scholarship.
Course development, faculty research travel, and language instruction training grants are now available. Read more.
September 2010
UNC’s School of Library and Information Science wins grants for collaboration with two Middle East universities.
Exhibit closing reception for “Esse Quam Videri: Muslim Self Portraits” by Todd Drake. September 9, 7-9:00 p.m., G.E.C. .
July 2010
The Duke-UNC Consortium for Middle East Studies wins Title VI funding for 2010-2014! Read more.
UNC Libraries hires their first Middle Eastern and African Studies librarian, Mohamed Abou El Seoud, beginning in October 2010. Read more.
Joint Duke-UNC graduate certificate in Middle East studies is approved. Read more.
February 2010
UNC grad Rashad Hussain is named U.S. special envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference.  Read more.
January 2010
Duke and UNC faculty researchers Schanzer, Kurzman, and Moosa report on “Anti-Terror Lessons of Muslim-American Communities.” Read more.
December 2009
Prof. Sahar Amer has won a book prize from the Modern Language Association.  Read more.
November 2009
Exhibit closing reception for “Esse Quam Videri: Muslim Self Portraits” by Todd Drake. September 9, 7-9:00 p.m., G.E.C. Learn more.
Prof. Ahmed El Shamsy (History) has received a dissertation award from the Middle East Studies Association. Read more.
The new book by Prof. Omid Safi explores the legacy of the Prophet Muhammad. Read more.
June 2009
Middle East Studies Newsletter, Summer 2009, celebrating 50 years of Arabic at UNC. Read here.
Prof. Sahar Amer (Asian Studies) has won a book prize from the Modern Language Association.  Read more.
April 2009
Center Director Carl Ernst has received a John Simon Guggenheim fellowship, in addition to being elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Read more.
Associate Director Cangüzel Zülfikar and her daughter were featured in Endeavors magazine in an article about researching the 1980 coup in Turkey. Read the article.
March 2009
A delegation of supporters from Turkey helped launch a fundraising effort for an endowed faculty chair in Islamic studies at a Feb. 12 kick-off event on campus. Read more.
November 2008
The contract between the Environment Agency-Abu Dhabi and The University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health has been expanded to include a broader range of assessments of health risks due to environmental factors in the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.). Read more.
In his new book, Democracy Denied, 1905-1915: Intellectuals and the Fate of Democracy (Harvard UP, 2008), Sociology professor Charles Kurzman explores the pre-World War I democratic revolutions of Russia, Iran, the Ottoman Empire, Portugal, Mexico, and China. Read more.
October 2008
UNC faculty members Sarah Shields and Banu Gökariksel, with support from the Mellon Foundation, will lead a 2009-10 Sawyer Seminar on “Diversity and Conformity in Muslim Societies: Historical Coexistence and Contemporary Struggles.” Read more.
June 2008
Drs. Aziz and Gwen Sancar, two professors at UNC-CH, have established a Turkish House (Turk Evi) in Chapel Hill as a Turkish cultural center and short term residence for Turkish visiting scholars. Read more.