News

As part of our lecture series this year on "Legacies of the Middle Eastern and Muslim Experience of the 20th Century," we were delighted to host Professor Zvi Ben-Dor Benite of New York University, one of the most eminent scholars of the history of Chinese Muslims. Over 100 students, [...]

Ehsan Sheikholharam, a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Religious Studies, was recently published in the International Journal of Religion. His article entitled, “Borders within Borders: Superkilen as the Site of Assimilation”, tackles the question of the representations of Muslims. The article focuses on a park in Copenhagen, [...]

Educators working to expand Arabic as a language offering to North Carolina students gathered recently at UNC-Chapel Hill to explore diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility in the language and cultures classroom. FIKRA, The second annual conference of the N.C. Arabic Teacher Council (NCATC), held Oct. 21-22, drew more than [...]

Dr. Claudia Yaghoobi, Director of the Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies, was invited to have a discussion with host Cristen Conger on her national podcast Unladylike. The episode, titled “A Feminist Revolution in Iran” covers why Iranian women been burning hijabs and leading protests ever since a 22-year-old Kurdish woman [...]

Protests against compulsory veiling are the latest examples of female resistance in the Islamic country, says Middle East expert Claudia Yaghoobi. Emily Padula, The Well, Friday, October 28th, 2022 As a wave of protests stemming from the death of a 22-year-old Iranian woman enters its second month, demonstrations have [...]

Editor’s note: This story is part of a package of stories featuring UNC researchers “in the field” in Colorado, North Carolina and on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Read “A new day for Old Fort” and “Crouching researcher, hidden sparrow.”  Religious studies scholar Waleed Ziad and UNC librarian Rustin Zarkar traveled [...]

Claudia Yaghoobi is the new director of the Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill. (Photo by John Bechtold) As the new director of the UNC-Chapel Hill Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies (CMEIS), Claudia Yaghoobi is eager to expand upon existing opportunities for students [...]

Dear Colleagues, As I begin my new role as the Center for the Middle East & Islamic Studies director, I would like to express my gratitude to all of you for providing me with the opportunity to serve. Thanks to Carl (Ernst) and Charlie (Kurzman)’s efforts over the past two [...]

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill area studies centers will receive approximately $12 million in competitive federal Title VI funding over the next four years to support language and area studies coursework, global programming and events, and outreach and opportunities for educators across the southeastern U.S. UNC-Chapel Hill [...]

The intricate panels, nearly 1,600 years old, include the first known depictions of two biblical heroines and an episode in ancient Jewish art. Left: The Israelite commander Barak depicted in the Huqoq synagogue mosaic. Right: Fox eating grapes depicted in Huqoq synagogue mosaic. (Photos by Jim Haberman) A [...]

Scholars from the department of African, African American and diaspora studies and a University Libraries digitization specialist traveled to Senegal and Mali to preserve and digitize 6,000 pages of handwritten Islamic manuscripts. Samba Camara sits in his office with a camera in the foreground and his computer in the background. [...]

This summer, Intermediate Arabic students at UNC put their language learning to the true test of connection with a special visit from Saeed, a 34-year-old Syrian refugee and language partner from NaTakallam. NaTakallam hires displaced persons & their host community members as online tutors, teachers, translators & cultural exchange partners. [...]