In 1839, the Congress of the Republic of Texas birthed the idea of an institution of higher education for its residents. More than forty years later, the state legislature called for the establishment of “a university of the first class.”[1]The University of Texas at Austin, founded in 1883, has become one of the largest and most respected universities in the nation. More than simply found a university that would address local and regional educational needs, the University of Texas, it was hoped, would embody the Republic of Texas’s lone star spirit, and its desire to be unconventional, bold, and new.[2]

 

So dear was the idea of founding a university that it sustained a forty-year debate over the university’s exact mission.  Many influential Texans, including Sam Houston, the President of the Republic of Texas, opposed founding a university in the East coast Ivy League tradition. Not wanting to found a university for a select few, many argued that public funds would be better spent on good primary and secondary education for all Texas children. This lengthy debate on the ideals of founding a Texan university produced a tension between serving practical needs and providing a locale where Texas students would be able to deeply study even the most esoteric topics. Two universities resulted: Texas A&M University, which would serve to educate farmers, ranchers, and veterinary doctors in more rural areas, and The University of Texas at Austin, created to educate Texas youth in the humanities and sciences in the state’s capital. Oran Milo Roberts, Texas Governor, Chief Justice, and founder of the University of Texas at Austin, said this about the university’s mission:

 

[The full result from education] can only be attained by promoting all of the grades of education, from the lowest to the highest, in harmonious cooperation adapted to the diversified wants of every class of people, whatever may be their pursuits in life. Nor will the benefits of the University and its branches be confined to the sons of the wealthy few. By no means will that be so. Place the facilities of a higher education before the people of this State, make it a reality, make it complete and cheap by a splendid endowment, and youths all over this broad land…will stand in the front ranks of the most gifted and favored in the halls of learning, and afterwards will adorn every sphere of life, with their brilliant accomplishments and practical usefulness[3].

 

This idea of inspiring students to change the world for the better is still present in UT’s core mission: “To transform lives for the benefit of society,”[4] and is evident in the current UT motto: “What starts here changes the world.”

 

A number of influential people have taught at UT Austin, among them Professor Ilya Prigogine who received the 1977 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, and the former deputy national security adviser to President Clinton, James B. Steinberg,[5] now the Dean of the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs. Dr. Steven Weinberg of The University of Texas at Austin, Department of Physics and Astronomy, and Denise Schmandt-Besserat, Professor of Art and Middle Eastern Studies, are listed among authors of the hundred books that have shaped and influenced the last century of science.[6]

 

Notable graduates include: former Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn; former U.S. Secretary of State James A. Baker III: former U.S. Ambassador Robert S. Strauss; former Secretary of the Treasury Lloyd M. Bentsen, Jr.; U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison; former Secretary of Energy Federico Peña; former presidential advisor Paul Begala; cartoonist Sam Hurt;[7] journalist Liz Carpenter; former Peruvian president Fernando Belaúnde Terry; pop icons like Janis Joplin, Jayne Mansfield and Farah Fawcett; Metropolitan Opera mezzo-soprano Barbara Conrad;[8] former First Lady Claudia Taylor “Lady Bird” Johnson; CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite;[9] Michael Dell of Dell Computers; “Trial Lawyer of the Century” Joseph D. Jamail, Jr.;[10] and the co-founder of OPEC, Sheik Abdullah Tariki, to name but a few.

 

Texas is known for its grand scale, and the University of Texas at Austin is no exception. The “splendid endowment” that UT founder O.M. Roberts mentioned as a central component in the building of the University of Texas at Austin has been a reality for much of the university’s history. UT is one of the largest public universities, and one of the biggest recipients of federal endowment in the United States. Texas offers a high-quality education for a fraction of the cost one might pay elsewhere.

 

The original idea of providing an affordable education to as many students as possible is a big factor in today’s large student body. Student enrollment in fall 2005 was 49,696 students. Of that number, 36,878 were undergraduates, 11,391 were graduate students, and 1,427 were law students. The university currently employs some 2,734 faculty and 19,716 staff members, and has approximately 450,000 living alumni.[11] The University of Texas at Austin comprises fifteen colleges and schools, with over 100 undergraduate and 170 graduate degree programs.

 

In a welcome letter to prospective students, UT President William Powers states that “The Times of London ranked UT second among U.S. public universities and 15th overall in its ranking of the world's top 200 universities.”[12]  UT is a diverse campus, with student organizations numbering more than 900. UT has students from more than one hundred countries and has made a commitment to ensure that diversity in the student population continues to grow. Currently, nine percent of UT students are international students.

 

The history of Middle Eastern Studies and course offerings on the larger Islamic world at the University of Texas at Austin is told through the presence of language instruction on campus. Before the birth of area studies programs as we know them today, course offerings on language and cultures of the Islamic world were housed in various language departments at UT. Department names have changed many times over the years at UT, but key players in the establishment of a concerted effort to offer instruction in the cultures and languages of the Islamic world began in the Linguistics, Germanic Languages, Government, History, and the Classics departments.

 

At the request of the local Lebanese community, Arabic instruction was offered within the Germanic Languages department, where Dr. W.P. Lehmann was Chair.[13] At this time, Biblical Hebrew was offered occasionally through the Classics Department and often by non-faculty members. Survey courses of the Middle East were offered occasionally through the History Department[14]. Concerned with the consequences of American isolationism in the post-Sputnik era, Dr. Lehmann secured funding from a Title IV grant from the National Defense Education Act (NDEA) created in 1958 to support the development of International Studies Centers and Foreign Language Area Studies Fellowships (FLAS). Dr. Lehmann secured funding for both the Centers of Middle Eastern and Asian Studies at UT, which have both grown and flourished and become nationally and internationally prominent centers today.

 

According to all accounts, Dr. W.P. Lehmann is considered the founder of the current Center for Middle Eastern Studies, and the person whose diligent efforts and hard work put UT on the list of prominent Middle East centers. The UT Center for Middle Eastern Studies and the first efforts to build a university-wide network of scholars on the Middle East and the larger Islamic world began in 1960. In 1965, Dr. Robert Fernea, a new graduate from the University of Chicago’s Department of Anthropology, became the Center’s first official Director to have a half-time post to devote exclusively to the development of the Center. In the early days the CMES was housed in the basement of Benedict Hall and had one part-time assistant[15]. Under Dr. Robert Fernea’s directorship, the center was moved to a larger space and became a “full-fledged administrative/academic unit, with expanded staff and facilities”.[16]

 

Dr. Fernea’s goal in developing the Center was to organize instruction around “the modern Middle East.” Older centers had been structured around archeological paradigms of an ancient or premodern Middle East. Dr. Fernea and colleagues in other campus departments around campus were interested in making the center a place where students might learn about contemporary issues relating to the Middle East and the Islamic world, so as to better understand contemporary conflicts and search for ways to resolve them. Perhaps sensing the major paradigm shift that would result after Edward Said’s Orientalism,[17] Fernea coauthored an article for The Annual Review of Anthropology[18] that ends with a humorous image of an anthropologist arriving at the site of the summit of an ancient saint shrine, to find it altogether abandoned by "natives." The article conveys a sense of anticipation of a radical paradigmatic change in the state of theory and representation of the Middle East and the Islamic world.

 

Later on, Professor Elizabeth Fernea began offering courses on women in the Middle East at the request of the late Dr. Paul English during his tenure as Director of the UT Center for Middle Easter Studies. While the inclusion of women’s studies within Islamic studies is somewhat taken for granted today, at the time Professor Elizabeth Fernea began teaching her courses they were something of a novelty. The first conference held at the University of Texas Center for Middle Eastern Studies in 1965 was “The Conflict of Traditionalism and Modernism in the Muslim Middle East,” and one woman was among the speakers.[19] In 1986, then-MESA President Elizabeth Fernea helped to establish the Association for Middle East Women’s Studies (AMEWS). At that year’s annual MESA meeting with Huda Naamani, Basima Bezergan, Salma Jayyusi and Assia Djebar in attendance for a poetry reading, AMEWS was officially inaugurated.[20] In part thanks to Professor Elizabeth Fernea’s pioneering efforts, women’s studies are more fully integrated into Islamic studies today. Her own writing continues to be translated into new languages[21] and is read in many women’s studies and social science courses.

 

Professors Robert and Elizabeth Fernea helped to launch MESA, as well as the UT Press Modern Middle East Series and the Middle East Monographs Series. Dr. Robert Fernea secured funding to start a modern nonfiction Middle East series in hardback. The first book published in this series was Dale Eickelman’s Moroccan Islam.[22] Professor Elizabeth Fernea later obtained funding to publish works of Middle Eastern women and to bring the work of Middle Eastern writers to English- speaking audiences. The first book published in this series was Layla Abu Zayd’s Year of the Elephant,[23] which was the first Arab woman’s autobiography to be translated into English. At the time the UT Press Modern Middle East Series was initiated, it was the only one of its kind.

 

Professor Clement Henry (Government) and Professor Roger Louis (History) also did much to shape the scope of studies focused on the Islamic world soon after CMES’s founding. A goal of the center has been to offer coursework that viewed the Middle East and Islamic civilization through a contemporary lens.  While the Center’s affiliates in various departments offer courses on all periods of Islamic history and civilization, there has always been a strong emphasis on training students to think critically about how we construct the past, and how contemporary societies in the region see their own histories vis à vis their contemporary lives.  

 

It is not surprising that language instruction has been a hallmark at UT, considering that the efforts to found The Center for Middle Eastern Studies emerged from various language departments.  The CMES and then-Department of African Languages and Literature (DALL) offered a small number of Arabic language courses and linguistics with a couple of area studies courses. Other languages were added later. Persian courses were introduced in 1962, and Hebrew in 1963. By 1969, languages and literatures of the Middle East had grown to the extent that the University’s administration approved the establishment of the Department of Oriental and African Languages and Literatures (DOALL). For the first time, the university offered specializations in Arabic, Hebrew, and Persian. Turkish was introduced in 1971 for a short time, and re-added on a more permanent basis in 1982.

 

A B.A. in Middle Eastern Studies was introduced in 1972. In 1979, an interdisciplinary M.A. in Middle Eastern Studies was offered “primarily for persons intending to enter government, industry, or other nonacademic, professional involvement in the Middle East.”[24] In 1985, an M.A. and Ph.D. were added, both administered through the Department of Oriental and African Languages and Literatures, an M.A. and a Ph.D. in Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures. Middle East specializations in Linguistics (M.A. and Ph.D.), Comparative Literature (Ph.D.), and Foreign Language Education (M.A. and Ph.D.) were also added later. In 1985, DOALL began to offer a Ph.D. in Middle Eastern Languages, Literatures, and Cultures with specializations in Hebrew, Arabic, and Persian.[25]

 

DOALL also then offered an M.A. in Oriental Languages, Literatures, and Cultures with the options of specializing in areas of the Middle East (Hebrew, Arabic, Persian); South Asia (Hindi, Sanskrit); and East Asia (Chinese, Japanese). After the CMES had operated for twenty-five years, it had grown to offer more than two hundred courses, and had associated faculty members in twenty disciplines throughout four colleges. In 1986, a joint degree program in Public Affairs and Middle Eastern Studies was created. Joint degrees in Middle Eastern Studies and Law and Middle Eastern Studies and Library Sciences were added later.

 

B.A. in Asian Studies

B.A. in Asian Cultures and Languages

B.A. in Arabic Studies

B.A. in Hebrew Studies

B.A. in Jewish Studies

B.A. in Islamic Studies

B.A. in Turkish Studies

B.A. in Persian Studies

 

M.A. in Asian Studies

M.A. in Asian Cultures and Languages

M.A. in Middle Eastern Studies

M.A. in Persian Studies

M.A./MBNA in Middle Eastern Studies and Business Administration

M.A. in Middle Eastern Studies and Communication

M.A./J.D. in Middle Eastern Studies and Law

M.A./M.P.A. in Middle Eastern Studies and Public Affairs

M.A./M.S.I.S. in Middle Eastern Studies and Information Studies

 

Ph.D. in Asian Cultures and Languages

Ph.D.Ph.D. in Arabic Studies

Ph.D.Ph.D. in Hebrew Studies

Ph.D.Ph.D. in Persian Studies

 

In addition, students may pursue M.A. and Ph.D. degrees with a concentration in the Middle East and greater Islamic world through other departments such as anthropology, comparative literature, foreign language education, geography, government, history, linguistics, and sociology.

 

Foreign Language Area Studies (FLAS) graduate fellowships

Various University of Texas at Austin fellowships

Ann Grabhorn-Friday Fellowship in Middle Eastern Studies

Elizabeth Warnock Fernea Endowment Fellowship[28]

Teaching assistantships in the Center

Departmental Dorot Foundation travel

Grants for summer study in Israel

Hibbs Scholarship in Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures

Dan Danciger Scholarships and Rabbi Israel H. Leventhal Scholarship in Hebrew Studies

Loans and work-study through the Office of Student Financial Aid

 

Historically at UT Austin, there has been a department for the study of Middle Eastern languages and cultures, and a more interdisciplinary approach apparent at the UT Center for Middle Eastern Studies. The presence of these two approaches has allowed for an intense scholarly training for those students who wish to pursue careers in teaching Middle Eastern studies in various departments, as well as an interdisciplinary M.A. degree that prepares students for other careers that might require a general overview of Middle Eastern history and politics outside of academia. The two entities have a great deal of overlap and cooperation and many courses cross-listed in different departments across campus.

 

Rather than follow a prescribed model, students are exposed to salient paradigms in various disciplines, and in the end, their education will have benefited from a very flexible, interdisciplinary approach.[29] Today, the Center for Middle Eastern Studies and the Department of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures are both housed in the West Mall Building.

 

A distinctive interdisciplinary approach in teaching languages and cultures of the Islamic world is combined with an important collaboration with scholars of Hebrew and Jewish history and culture, and Christian history and culture. While this piece focuses specifically on those developments related to the Islamic world in broad terms, to separate the Islamic component from the Jewish and Christian facets of instruction and collaborative efforts that occurred at UT would be misrepresentative, and contradict the spirit of the CMES and the Department of Middle Eastern Studies. Islamic studies is but one component of the dynamic region of the Middle East and the Islamic world, and there has been a sustained interest in showing how different languages and religions overlap and borrow from each other. Two programs have come about as a result from this perspective, the Tracking Cultures Program and the Mediterranean Crossroads Program. Both programs include travel to multiple countries on different continents with a focus on examining how different ethnic, linguistic, and faith communities have interacted historically.

 

Individual faculty and staff members have also integrated this approach with their own research and outreach efforts. For example, Professors Liebowitz and Epstein conducted research on regional variation in Texas and Mexico on Sukkah and the Feast of Tabernacle.[30] The University of Texas at Austin hosted a Sephardic Festival in 1988,[31] and later a major lecture on the Sephardic Legacy on the 500^th Anniversary of the expulsion of Jews from Spain.[32] A “Women of the Book” conference, organized by Elizabeth Fernea in 1998, examined the ways that Jewish, Christian, and Muslim women’s spheres of experience overlap.[33]

 

This same spirit defines the UT CMES Outreach Program, which has been very actively engaged with the Austin public since the Center’s founding in 1960. In the summer and fall of 2000, the Outreach Program organized a Summer Teacher’s Institute, “Faith, Culture, and Identity: Teaching about Religion Today,” that brought together thirty middle and high-school school teachers from all over the state of Texas. A similar Summer Institute was held in 2001: “World Cultures through the Arts.”[34] Current Outreach Program Coordinator Christopher Rose speaks widely on various topics on the Middle East at different events throughout Austin. Hillary Hutchison, in her capacity as CMES Executive Assistant, spoke to the Austin Interfaith Ministries about faith traditions in the Middle East.[35]

 

For students who appreciate this flavor of atmosphere, UT is an ideal place to study. For those interested in an academic environment specifically focused on Islamic studies, they will not be disappointed in UT. The University of Texas at Austin has a very broad array of course offerings in different departments and faculty with a wide array of interests, so much that almost any student, no matter what his or her interests, will feel at home.

 

Instruction in the Arabic language has always been a cornerstone of the University of Texas Middle East program. Many UT instructors have played an important role in developing ideas about the teaching of Arabic at other U.S. institutions and abroad.[37] The University of Texas at Austin is very happy to welcome Mahmoud al-Batal and Kristen Brustad to its Arabic program. Authors of the widely adopted Arabic text, al-Kitab fii Ta’alum al-‘Arabiya, their expertise and successful teaching strategies will certainly secure UT’s place among the best institutions in the world for studying Modern Standard Arabic.

 

The University of Texas at Austin was one of the first to promote the use of computer-aided technology in Arabic instruction. In 1982, Dr. Victorine Abboud developed a program to teach intermediate level Modern Standard Arabic.[38] She helped build a Computer Assisted Instruction (CAI) Lab, which was then housed under the DOALL. She added this technological component to the language lab that she had helped found in 1971.[39]

 

In 1982, Dr. Peter Abboud was selected to organize and direct the School of Arabic at Middlebury College, Vermont, marking the first time that Middlebury offered its summer Arabic program.[40] Dr. Abboud successfully established the Arabic summer program at Middlebury, which continues to be an important center for the study of Arabic. Both Dr. Peter Abboud and Victorine Abboud continued to lead the Middlebury Summer Arabic program in 1983.[41] After Dr. Victorine Abboud’s death in 1985, Dr. Peter Abboud completed her CAI program for teaching intermediate Arabic, one of the first of its kind in the country.[42] Dr. Abboud’s early Arabic textbook, and later editions co-authored with Dr. Aman Attieh, have been widely used in the teaching of Modern Standard Arabic in the U.S. and abroad. Dr. Mohammed A. Mohammed added an important component of Arabic linguistics to the UT Arabic Program, and Dr. Samer Ali’s classes on Arabic translation and pre-Islamic poetry are among the most popular courses among students today. Students with topics ranging from pre-Islamic texts to Islamic Spain, modern-day Egypt, and beyond will find a score of resources and support in UT Austin’s Arabic program.

 

In addition to Arabic courses offered during the academic year, the CMES and DMES offer comprehensive courses in the summer through the Summer Language Consortium Program. First called “The Middle East Summer Institute,” the summer language program began in 1983, and focused on teaching Arabic, Hebrew, and Persian and courses in Middle Eastern politics, culture, and history.[43] It was co-sponsored by the Consortium of Western States Universities (The University of Denver, the University of Utah, and Portland State University). When it began in 1983, nearly one hundred students attended from UT, Princeton, the University of Arizona, University of Michigan, and the University of Pennsylvania. The Institute was the only one of two summer programs that offered both Arabic and Hebrew. The program, now called The Summer Language Institute of the Western Consortium of Middle East Centers,[44] has grown and today continues to be a positive experience for students who chose to do summer language study in the U.S.

As mentioned earlier, the study of Persian at UT predates both the CMES and the DMES. The Persian program at UT was formally started by the late Dr. M.A. Jazayery. He had a great interest in the work of Ahmad Kasravi and was considered one of the foremost experts in Kasravi studies.[45] UT’s current offerings and instruction have been greatly shaped by Dr. M.A. Jazayery, Dr. M.R. Ghanoonparvar (both graduates of UT Austin), and Michael Hillmann, who also teaches Tajik. Dr. M.R. Ghanoonparvar, current Director of the Persian Studies Program, has a special interest in twentieth-century Persian literature, comparative literary history and criticism, and the methodology and practice of literary translation.

 

Dr. Jazayery, in keeping with the Center’s emphasis on the modern Middle East, conducted research on language reform in Iran during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries during the Pahlevi period and between opponents and proponents of language reform.[46] Persian instruction at UT has thus mainly focused on modern Persian. In the early days of the CMES, funds from the Iran-America Foundation, after its dissolution following the Iranian Revolution, were given to the UT Press to support scholarly works in Iranian Studies.[47]

 

During the course of the Persian Program at UT over the years, a great number of international conferences have been organized, bringing together many leading figures in Persian and Iranian studies. Persian fiction writer and literary critic Hushang Golshiri[48] visited a UT conference, “Iranian Literature in Exile,” which featured speakers like Manoucher Parvin and Sattareh Farman Farmaian.[49] A later conference, “Nineteenth-Century Persian Travel Memoirs,”[50] was held at UT attracting scholars from around the world.

 

The UT Austin Persian Program has benefited greatly from generous contributions from local and regional Iranian donors who have made important library acquisitions possible[51] (see library holdings below). Persian Studies at UT are supported by experienced faculty and unique resources in terms of reference materials and a dynamic relationship with the local community.

Turkish    

In fall 1983, after a ten-year lapse, UT began to offer beginning Turkish under the supervision of Dr. John Bordie (FLEC) and Assistant Instructor Ayshegul Musallam, under the auspices of DOALL.[52]  At this time plans were also made to expand Turkish studies the following year to offer second-year Turkish. Students with some familiarity in Turkish were also able to study Uzbek through DOALL[53] and Azeri later on. In 1985, the University of Texas began to offer more Turkish courses and secured funding to do so from the U.S. Department of Education and the Institute of Turkish Studies. Dr. Donald Quataert offered courses in Turkish history and Abraham Marcus offered a course in Ottoman history.[54] At this time, the CMES organized lectures and exhibits for the UT community and local community on topics relating to Turkey and Turkish culture.[55] Funding from the Institute of Turkish Studies also helped in acquiring important Turkish-language reference works for the University’s Middle Eastern Collection.[56]

 

Professor Yildiray Erdener is the current Turkish Program Coordinator. His distinctive approach to teaching Turkish comes from his background in folklore, ethnomusicology, and his own experiences as a musician. He has developed very unique teaching resources and a textbook on teaching Turkish through folksongs.[57] Professor Erdener also does a great number of conference courses with graduate and undergraduate students in a variety of different fields. He has also maintained a very active study abroad program with Bogaziçi University in Istanbul.

 

The Urdu program is organized through the UT Center for Asian Studies. Urdu has been taught over the years at UT at various levels since the founding of the Center for Asian Studies in 1960. Courses in Urdu are currently taught from the beginning level through the fourth year. Starting in 2000, with the arrival of Professor S. Akbar Hyder, the Urdu Program has consistently offered all levels to students every semester. Students who want to go beyond the fourth year may also take advanced courses in Urdu literature on topics as diverse as the Sufi traditions of Southeast Asia, devotional literature, and the contemporary Urdu novel.[58] Dr. Gail Minault, who specializes in the history of India and Pakistan, women's history, and the history of Islamic art, also teaches courses on women's writings in Urdu.

 

The Urdu program at UT strongly encourages students to study Urdu abroad for a year in Lucknow, India.[59] Although a degree in Urdu is not currently available, students majoring in Asian Studies or Asian Cultures and Languages at the B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. levels will certainly be able to incorporate study of Urdu into their course program.

 

According to a proposal[60] recently made by the UT Center for Middle Eastern Studies, the UT Library System is ranked “the fifth largest academic library in the country.”. With combined Title VI and institutional funding, the CMES has built the general libraries' Middle East Collections, which rank among the top ten in the U.S. In the 2004-2005 academic year, close to 5,000 items were acquired in Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, Turkish, and Azeri. Monographs and bound periodicals currently total 379, 041 (Arabic 88,309; Hebrew 38,425; Persian 40,863; Turkish/Ottoman Turkish 11,867; Azeri 3,107; and Western languages 196,470). Other holdings include: 2,761 serials; 10,805 microforms; 1,020 musical recordings; 1,401 films/videos/DVDs; 53,500 slides; and 12,717 digitized slides in a searchable database.[61]

 

The libraries’ holdings are to a great extent the efforts of Abazar Sepheri, who worked as the lead Middle Eastern librarian for more than twenty-five years since 1975.[62] In addition to traveling widely throughout the world acquiring resources for UT, Seperi consulted with a number of librarians, scholars, and government officials. He also acted as consultant for an Azerbaijani Romanization table for the Library of Congress, and taught Azerbaijani for the Center for Middle Eastern Studies using unique teaching aids he developed for the new Latin alphabet.

 

The UT collection focuses specifically on the contemporary Middle East, and has important holdings in the areas of modern Persian and Arabic literature, hadith, works on Shi’ism published in Iran, a complete collection of works by and about Ahmad Kasravi, Islamic philosophy and jurisprudence, a microfilm set of rare Zaydi manuscripts from Yemen,[63] and a great number of resources on a wide variety of topics in Urdu.[64] The University of Texas also has one of the nation’s largest vernacular collections in Arabic, Hebrew, and Persian literary materials[65].

 

Mr. Sepheri also dedicated a great amount of effort in expanding the collections’ Turkish and Azeri holdings, which include a nearly complete set of periodicals “unique in the country,” many of which are not held by any other library in the U.S.[66] UT holdings also include a unique collection, the Development Communication Archive, which was donated by the U.S. Agency of International Development.[67]

 

Volumes of census records from Middle Eastern countries are housed at the Population Research Center.[68] The Center for Middle Eastern Studies Resource Center houses a number of important works, as well as a large film and music collection. The Fine Arts Library also houses a vast CD collection of musical traditions from virtually every corner of the Islamic world.

 

Other important resources can be found in the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center and the Joseph D. Jamail Center for Legal Research.[69] While the former houses rare and older, historically important documents, the latter[70] is actively collecting contemporary works on Islamic law in English, French, and German.

 

Dubbed the “Bibliothèque Nationale of the only state that started out as an independent nation,” the Harry Ransom Center has become one of the foremost American research centers. In addition to its Middle Eastern holdings and resources on the Islamic world in the general library collections, the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center also contains a number of rare, unique documents related to the Middle East.[71] Among the Center’s holdings are personal papers of T.E. Lawrence, Paul Bowles, Freya Stark, Richard Burton, and many others.[72]

 

Professor Roger Louis, who began teaching at UT in 1970 in the Department of History, served as the curator of historical collections in the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center from 1985.[73]In spring 1989, the University acquired 68 rare volumes, some written by and others belonging to Sir William Jones, the well-known eighteenth-century English linguist.[74] Funds to acquire the Sir William Jones Collection came from the Dean’s Office in the College of Liberal Arts, the Harry Ransom Research Center, and the General Libraries. The collection spans Sir Jones’s career, including his working copy of The Moallakát, the name given to the Seven Odes that hung in the temple of Mecca, considered to be some of the most important work in the cannon of pre-Islamic poetry. The collection also includes Sir Jones’s translation of a Persian manuscript brought to England by Christian VII of Denmark, Ta’rikh-i-Nadiri, or Histoire de Nader Chah.

 

For students and researchers interested in accessing the HRC’s collections, a user-friendly searchable database has been established. Detailed information, down to the contents of every box and file, is available online.[75]

One very special feature of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies is its extensive outreach program. Like the University of Texas in general, the center’s concern for integrating the university with the local Austin community is a primary distinguishing characteristic, and an endeavor in which much effort and care is placed. 

 

The Center's outreach program, which began in the mid-1970s, is a national leader in the field. The outreach staff maintains resources in the Center’s Resource Center, which contains a collection of 4,000 English-language books and reference works, some 10,000 slides, and hundreds of journals, films, musical recordings, and curricular materials, organizes conferences, speaks at local schools, develops curricular modules for teaching, and organizes film festivals and musical concerts. The University of Texas Middle East Network Information Center (UT-MENIC), established by the Center in 1994, provides the world's most thorough directory of online information on the Middle East, with links to hundreds of databases. UT-MENIC receives over two million hits a year.

 

Austin is consistently voted one of the nicest places in the U.S. to live. For any prospective student of the Middle East and Islamic world, of Muslim background or not, Austin is indeed an ideal place to live. Austin’s unique title as “the live music capital of the world” makes the city an exciting place, and the world music and Middle Eastern music performances are consistently original and of very high quality. The Center for Middle Eastern Studies has successfully brought Middle Eastern music to the UT campus and the larger Austin community. The UT Austin Performing Arts Center has also brought well-known and musicians who represent various regions of the Islamic world to UT. Austin is home to many international restaurants and markets, art museums, and local interfaith festivals and interfaith musical ensembles that make Austin a wonderful place to live for the student of the Middle East and Muslim world.

 

The longstanding reputation of instruction in these areas at UT has inspired a loyal local base of supporters, some former students, who put their education to use in a number of creative and surprising ways. Muslim communities from nearly every world region live in or around Austin, and there are several mosques in the local area that organize their own cultural programs for Muslims and non Muslims. The combination of excellent and varied instruction at UT, local art and music events, cultural and gastronomic festivals, well-established Muslim and Jewish communities, as well as Middle Eastern and Mediterranean Christian communities, make Austin a living laboratory of contemporary life in a globalized and diasporic world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Classics (See Art, Middle Eastern Studies, History, Geography, and Literature.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Karin S. Wilkins(Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, Radio-Television-Film, Urban Studies) Development and international communication, media and social change. Development communication as it relates to international health, population and environmental issues, media studies.

 

Glenn Peers(Art and Art History, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Religious Studies, Russian, East European & Eurasian Studies) The theoretical aspects of Byzantine art; hagiography theological and hagiographical problems.

 

Denise Schmandt-Besserat (Department of Art and Art History, Center for Middle Eastern Studies) Middle Eastern archaeology; origins of writing and numeration in the Middle East; art history.

 

Kamran Asdar Ali(Anthropology, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, Religious Studies, South Asia Institute, Women's and Gender Studies, Population Research Center) Gender, Health, Development, Labor History, Political Economy; Post-Colonialism; Urban Social Histories, Popular Culture, Historiography, Memory, Liberalism, Middle East; South Asia (Egypt, Pakistan).

 

James A. Neely (Anthropology, Center for Middle Eastern Studies) Prehistoric and early historic cultural development and culture change; processes of plant and animal domestication; development of urban life; ancient technology (lithics, ceramics, water control, and irrigation).

 

Carol F. Justus(Classics, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Linguistics Research Ctr.) Indo-European language and culture, language change, grammatical structure, prayer & pragmatic structure, evolution of numerals, Hittite, Greek, Latin.

 

William R. Nethercut (Classics, Center for Middle Eastern Studies) Greek and Roman literature; Ancient Egypt; Egyptian history, art, culture, hieroglyphics,

Greek and Roman literature.

 

Thomas Palaima (Classics, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Religious Studies) Aegean and eastern Mediterranean prehistory and archaeology pertaining to inscribed or marked materials.

 

Barbara J. Harlow(Comparative Literature, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, English, Middle Eastern Studies, Women's and Gender Studies) Cultural politics and political cultures; third world studies; critical theory; prison and resistance writings and postcolonial studies (particularly Anglophone African and modern Arabic literatures and cultures).Colonial and resistance literature of the Middle East and Africa.

 

Geraldine Heng (Comparative Literature, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, English, Middle Eastern Studies, Women's and Gender Studies) The Crusades, medieval studies; medieval romance; Middle English literature; literature and culture of the Crusades; Chaucer; Arthurian literature; feminist, race, and cultural theory.

 

Sara E. Kimball (Center for Middle Eastern Studies, English, Linguistics Research Ctr.) Hittitology, Hittite, and Indo-European languages, historical linguistics, history of literacy, lexicography, language and gender.

 

Adam Zachary Newton (Comparative Literature, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, English, Middle Eastern Studies, Religious Studies) twentieth-century American literature; literary and narrative theory; the novel; aesthetics and hermeneutics; literature and ethnicity; Jewish studies; popular culture; nineteenth century British novel, poetry, non-fiction prose; contemporary fiction; modern Jewish poetry and prose; Jewish thought; diaspora studies; comparative national literatures and "minor" modernisms; literature and philosophy (ethics, hermeneutics, philosophy of language); comics as genre and narrative form; languages: Hebrew, Yiddish, French, Russian, Spanish, German, Latin, Greek.

 

Karl W. Butzer(Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Geography and the Environment, Latin American Studies Environmental Science Institute, LLILAS) Cultural ecology, irrigation, and settlement in pre-Islamic Egypt; historical geography of Axumite to early modern Ethiopia; historical geography of Roman and Islamic Spain; Muslim minorities in Christian Spain.

Diana K. Davis (Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Geography and the Environment, Middle Eastern Studies, Environmental Science Institute) Political ecology; critical environmental history; colonialism; pastoral societies and arid lands; range ecology; ethnoveterinary medicine; gender, environment and development; Middle East and North Africa; medical geography.

 

Ian Manners (Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Geography and the Environment, Middle Eastern Studies, Urban Studies) Resource management with particular reference to ecological and socioeconomic processes influencing decision-making; ecologically sustainable development; environmental impact assessment and mitigation.

 

Jason Brownlee(Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Government) Comparative politics in the developing world, with an emphasis on the Middle East and questions of domestically-driven regime change and regime durability; the impact of ruling parties in maintaining authoritarianism and preventing democratization; political institutions; domestic democratization movements and international democracy promotion.

George Gavrilis (Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Government) Why aggressive attempts by states to control their borders often fail to provide security, focusing on the Middle East, Central Asia, and parts of Africa; the strategy of conflict. International relations, comparative politics, conflict, boundaries.

 

Clement Moore Henry (Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Government, Middle Eastern Studies) Political parties, the engineering profession, financial institutions, and development of civil society in the Middle East and North Africa. Comparative politics of the Middle East and North Africa; financial systems and business elites; international business (oil and political risk analysis).

 

Ami Pedahzur (Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Government, Middle Eastern Studies) Political extremism in Israel, political violence and political parties, terrorism.

 

Yoav DiCapua(Center For Middle Eastern Studies, Department of Middle Eastern Studies, History) Modern Arab Thought with an emphasis on Egypt.

 

William Roger Louis (Center for Middle Eastern Studies, History, Middle Eastern Studies) British Empire/Commonwealth and the history, literature, and politics of nineteenth and twentieth-century Britain. British Empire in the Middle East, especially in the post-1945 period; the contemporary Middle East.

 

Abraham Marcus (Center for Middle Eastern Studies, History, Middle Eastern Studies, Religious Studies) Arab and Ottoman history; Islamic history; social history of the Middle East; music cultures of the Middle East; Middle Eastern cities and urban history.

 

Gail Minault (South Asia Institute, Women's and Gender Studies, History) History of India and Pakistan; women's history, history of Islamic art. Intellectual and social history of Muslims in South Asia; Islam and politics in India and Pakistan; religious sources of social change; Muslim women's degree-institution and women's writings in Urdu.

 

Mary C. Neuburger (Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Department of Middle Eastern Studies, Women’s and Gender Studies) Balkan and Eastern European history.

 

Denise A. Spellberg (Center for Middle Eastern Studies, History, Medieval Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, Religious Studies, Women's and Gender Studies

Bridging Disciplines Program) Middle East history and religion; Medieval Islamic history and religion; Ottoman Turkish and Byzantine cultures; pre-Islamic religions of Iran; social attitudes toward women in each of these historical contexts.

Samuel Keith Walters (Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Linguistics, Department of Middle Eastern Studies, Religious Studies) Linguistic diversity; sociolinguistics; language contact and change in the Arab world.

 

Peter F. Abboud(Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Middle Eastern Studies)

 Arabic syntax and phonology; Arabic dialectology; medieval Arabic grammar and grammarians; socio-linguistics; history of the Arabic language.

 

Kamran S. Aghaie (Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Current Acting Director) Islamic studies; and modern Iranian and Middle Eastern history, Shi'ism, Islamic rituals, social and cultural history, economic history, religious and political discourses, historiography, nationalism, and gender studies. Language areas include Persian and Arabic.

 

Mahmoud al-Batal (Arabic Applied Linguistics, Center for Middle Eastern
Studies, Middle Eastern Studies) Arabic Linguistics, Theory and practice of Teaching Arabic as a Foreign Language (TAFL).

 

Samer Ali (Comparative Literature, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, Religious Studies) Islamic kingship, court literature and patronage, classical historiography, modern and medieval folklore and folklife, Arab women poets, oral performance of Homeric epic, literary criticism.

 

Hina Azam (Department of Middle Eastern Studies, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Center for Women’s and Gender Studies, Religious Studies) Islamic law and jurisprudence, women and Islam.

 

Aaron Bar-Adon (Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, Religious Studies) Socio-linguistics and language acquisition; Hebrew and Arabic language, literature, and linguistics.

 

Kristen Brustad (Department of Middle Eastern Studies, Center For Middle Eastern Studies) Arabic language and literature of all periods and regions; language ideology; dialect studies; methodologies of comparative study; pedagogy.

 

Yildiray Erdener (Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, Russian, East European & Eurasian Stud., Américo Paredes Center for Cultural Studies) Turkish language; folklore and ethnomusicology of Turkey and the Turkic Republics; Turkish minstrel music; folklore and music of the Middle East and Central Asia.

 

Mohammad Ghanoonparvar (Comparative Literature, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Middle Eastern Studies) twentieth century Persian literature; comparative literary history and criticism; methodology and practice of literary translation.

 

Karen Grumberg (Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, Women's and Gender Studies) Contemporary Hebrew literature, American Jewish literature, comparative Jewish literatures, Mizrahi writing, women's writing in Israel.

 

Michael Craig Hillmann (Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Middle Eastern Studies) Persian (Farsi and Tajiki) language and literature; Iranian art and culture; literary autobiography; lyric verse.

 

Harold A. Liebowitz (Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, Religious Studies) Archaeology and art history of the land of Israel in the Biblical and Greco-Roman periods; art and archaeology of the Ancient Near East with particular emphasis on the Late Bronze to Mamluk Periods in Israel, Jordan, and Syria; daily life in Ancient Israel; material culture and literature of the period of the Mishnah and Talmud; medieval Jewish illuminated manuscripts from Spain, and Old Testament narrative painting from the Byzantine period until the Renaissance.

 

Mohammad A. Mohammad (Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Middle Eastern Studies) Linguistics and the Arabicl. Standard and Palestinian dialect.

 

Nader Morkus (Department of Middle Eastern Studies, Center for Middle Eastern Studies) Discourse analysis, intercultural communication between Arabs and Americans, the use of technology to enhance intercultural communication.

 

Esther L. Raizen (Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Chair of Middle Eastern Studies, Linguistics Research Ctr.) Modern and classical Hebrew language, linguistics and literature; Hebrew as a foreign language; Jewish history and culture; computer-assisted instruction and computational linguistics; academic advising and student development.

 

Yaron Shemer (Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, Radio-Television-Film) Radio, television, and film; Israeli film; Hebrew language and cultures.

 

Faegheh S. Shirazi (Asian American Studies, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, Center for Women's and Gender Studies) Material culture and its influence on gender identity and discourse in Muslim societies. Textiles and clothing, particularly the Islamic veil (hijab). Women, rituals, and rites of passage as they relate to material culture in popular Islamic societies.

 

Monica Yaniv (Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Middle Eastern Studies) Hebrew language.

 

Abraham Zilkha(Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, Religious Studies) Hebrew language and linguistics; modern Israel.

 

 

Mounira Charrad (Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, Religious Studies, Sociology, Center for Women's and Gender Studies) Gender and women's rights; political sociology; development; and comparative historical methodology.

 

William P. Frisbie (Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Sociology, Center for HPR, Institute of Gerontology, Population Research Center) Demography, pregnancy outcomes, mortality, race/ethnic differentials in health, urban ecology, immigration.

 

David J. Eaton(Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Latin American Studies, LBJ School of Public Affairs, Middle Eastern Studies, Russian, East European & Eurasian Studies, Environmental Science Institute, Urban Studies) Water; natural resources; agriculture; health; urban services; water management in the Jordan River Basin; public administration, management, and dispute resolution. Sustainable development in international river basins, evaluation of energy and water conservation programs, and prevention of pollution; new methods for evaluation of air pollution emissions, joint management by Palestinians and Israelis of shared groundwater.

 

Kate Gillespie(Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Latin American Studies, Marketing, Middle Eastern Studies, Russian, East European & Eurasian Stud. LLILAS) International marketing, macromarketing, international business-government relations, business in developing countries.

Peter Abboud (Professor, Department of Middle Eastern Studies, former Director of

         MELC,[87] former Arabic Program Coordinator)

Robert H. Abzug (Oliver H. Radkey Regents Professor in History)

Mahmoud al-Batal (Associate Professor, Department of Middle Eastern Studies)

Matthew Bailey (Associate Professor, Department of Spanish and Portuguese)

Susan Boettcher (Assistant Professor, Department of History)

Pascale R. Bos (Associate Professor, Department of Germanic Studies)

Kamran Aghaie (Director, Center for Middle Eastern Studies)

Samer Ali (Assistant Professor, Department of Middle Eastern Studies, Graduate Advisor

in Islamic Studies, Arabic Studies, Jewish Studies, Hebrew Studies, Persian Studies, and Turkish Studies)

Kamran Asdar Ali (Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology)

Hina Azam (Instructor, Department of Middle Eastern Studies)

Matthew Bailey (Associate Professor, Department of Spanish and Portuguese)

Aaron Bar-Adon (Professor, Department of Middle Eastern Studies)

Zoltan Barany (Frank C. Erwin, Jr. Centennial Professor in Government)

Valerie Bencivenga (Senior Lecturer, Department of Economics)

Gordon Bennett (Associate Professor, Department of Government)

Jason Brownlee (Assistant Professor, Department of Government)

Kristen Brustad (Associate Professor, Department of Middle Eastern Studies)

Catherine Boone (Associate Professor, Department of Government)

Karl Butzer (Raymond Dickson Centennial Professor, Department Geography and the

         Environment)

Joseph Carter (Centennial Professor in Classical Archaeology, Department of Classics)

Mounira Charrad (Associate Professor, Department of Sociology)

David F. Crew (Professor, Department of History)

Diana Davis (Assistant Professor, Department of Geography and the Environment)

Penelope Davies (Associate Professor, Department of Art and Art History)

James Denbow (Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology)

Yoav DiCapua (Assistant Professor, Department of History)

David Eaton (Bess Harris Jones Centennial Professor in Natural Resource Policy Studies,

         Lyndon B Johnson School of Public Affairs)

Paul W. English (Professor, Department of Geography, Former CMES Director)

Yildiray Erdener (Assistant Professor, Department of Middle Eastern Studies, Program

         Coordinator of Turkish Studies)

Oloruntoyin O. Falola (Frances Higginbotham Nalle Centennial Professor in History)

W. Parker Frisbie (Professor, Department of Sociology)

Eric David Frances (Professor, Department of Classics)

Michael Gagarin (James R. Dougherty, Jr. Centennial Professor in Classics)

George Gavrilis (Assistant Professor, Department of Government)

M. R. Ghanoonparvar (Professor, Department of Middle Eastern Studies, Program

         Coordinator for Persian Studies, former CMES Associate Director, former Middle

         Eastern Summer Language Institute Director)

Kate Gillespie (Associate Professor, Department of Marketing Administration, Red

         McCombs School of Business, Former CMES Associate Director)

William Glade (Professor, Department of Economics)

Benjamin Gregg (Associate Professor, Department of Government)

Karen Grumberg (Assistant Professor, Department of Middle Eastern Studies)

Mehdi Haghshenas (Lecturer, Department of Sociology)

Ian F. Hancock (Professor, Department of Linguistics)

Barbara Harlow (Louann and Larry Temple Centennial Professor in English Literature)

Geraldine Heng (Associate Professor, Department of English)

Clement Moore Henry (Professor, Department of Government)

Michael Hillmann (Professor, Department of Middle Eastern Studies, former Middle

         Eastern Language Institute Director)

Melvin Hinich (Mike Hogg Professor of Local Government)

John M. Hoberman (Chair, Germanic Studies)

Thomas Hubbard (Professor, Department of Classics)

S. Akbar Hyder (Assistant Professor, Department of Asian Studies, Islamic Studies Committee Chair)

Carol Justus (Adjunct Associate Professor, Department of Classics)

Lisa Kallet (Professor, Department of Classics)

Sara Kimball (Associate Professor, Department of English)

John Kroll (Professor, Department of Classics)

Lester Kurtz (Professor, Department of Sociology)

John Lamphear (Professor, Department of History)

Richard Lariviere (Dean of the College of Liberal Arts, former Director of the Center for

         Asian Studies)

Janice Leoshko (Associate Professor, Department of Art and Art History)

Harold Liebowitz (Professor, Department of Middle Eastern Studies, former Director)

Naomi E Lindstrom (Professor, Department of Spanish and Portuguese)

W. Roger Louis (Mildred Caldwell and Baine Perkins Kerr Centennial Chair in English

         History and Culture)

Ian Manners (Professor, Department of Geography and the Environment, Former

         Director of CMES)

Abraham Marcus (Associate Professor, Department of History, Former CMES Director)

Susan Marshall (Distinguished Teaching Professor, Department of Sociology)

Aloysius P. Martinich (Roy Allison Vaughan Centennial Professor in Philosophy)

Gail Minault (Professor, Department of History)

Mohammed A. Mohammed (Associate Professor, Department of Middle Eastern Studies,

         Coordinator of Arabic Studies)

Robert W. Mugerauer, Jr. (Centennial Professor, School of Architecture)

Nader Morkus (Lecturer, Department of Middle Eastern Studies)

William Nethercut (Professor, Department of Classics)

Joan Neuberger (Associate Professor, Department of History)

Martha G. Newman (Associate Professor, Department of History)

Mary Catherine Neuburger (Assistant Professor, Department of History and Center for

         Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies)

Adam Z. Newton (Jane and Roland Blumberg Centennial Professor in English, Acting

         Director for Jewish Studies Program)

Thomas Palaima (Raymond Dickson Centennial Professor, Department of Classics)

Barbara Parmenter (Assistant Professor, Department of Architecture)

Ami Pedahzur (Associate Professor, Department of Government)

Glenn Peers (Associate Professor, Department of Art and Art History)

Paula Perlman (Associate Professor, Department of Classics)

Joseph Potter (Professor, Population Research Center)

Esther Raizen (Associate Professor, Department of Middle Eastern Studies Director)

Ellen Rathje (Associate Professor, Department of Civil Engineering)

Cory Reed (Associate Professor, Department of Spanish and Portuguese)

Ramin Saraf (Assistant Instructor, Department of Middle Eastern Studies)

Cynthia Shelmerdine (Robert M. Armstrong Centennial Professor, Department of

         Classics)

Yaron Shemer (Senior Lecturer, Department of Middle Eastern Studies)

Faegheh Shirazi (Associate Professor, Department of Middle Eastern Studies)

Andree F. Sjoberg (Associate Professor CMES)

Stephen Slawek (Professor, School of Music)

Denise Spellberg (Associate Professor, Department of History)

James B. Steinberg (Dean, Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs)

Joseph Straubhaar (Amon G. Carter Centennial Professor in Communication, Department

         of Radio Television Film, College of Communication)

Madeline Sutherland-Meier (Associate Professor, Department of Spanish and

         Portuguese)

S. Keith Walters (Professor, Department of Linguistics, former CMES Associate

         Director)

Nina Warnke (Assistant Professor, Department of Germanic Studies)

L. Michael White (The Ronald Nelson Smith Chair in Classics & Christian Origins,

         Department of Classics)

Stephen White (Professor, Department of Classics)

Karin G. Wilkins (Associate Professor, Department of Radio, Television, and Film)

Seth L. Wolitz (L. D., Marie and Edwin Gale Chair of Judaic Studies,

         Department of French and Italian)

Monica Yaniv (Lecturer, Department of Middle Eastern Studies, Undergraduate Advisor

         in Islamic Studies, Arabic Studies, Hebrew Studies, Jewish Studies, Persian

         Studies, and Turkish Studies)

Avraham Zilkha, (Associate Professor, Department of Middle Eastern Languages and

Cultures, Program Coordinator in Hebrew Studies, former CMES Assistant Director)

 

 

David Armstrong (Professor Emeritus, Department of Classics)

John G. Bordie (Professor Emeritus, Department of Linguistics, and FLEC)

Albert M. Chammah, (Associate Professor Emeritus, CMES)

Hafez Farmayan (Professor Emeritus, Department of History, former Director of the

         Iranian Studies Program)

Robert Fernea (Professor Emeritus, Department of Anthropology, former Director of the

         CMES, Co-founder of UT Press Middle East Series)

Elizabeth Fernea (Professor Emeritus, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, former CMES Graduate and Ungergraduate Advisor, Co-founder of UT Press Middle East Series)

Robert Folk (Professor Emeritus, Department of Geography)

Omer Galle (Professor Emeritus, Department of Sociology)

Michael Hall (Professor Emeritus, History)

Robert L. Hardgrave, Jr. (Louann and Larry Temple Centennial Professor Emeritus in the

         Humanities, Department of Government and Asian Studies)

Robert Holz (Erich W. Zimmerman Regents Professor Emeritus in Geography, former

         CMES Director, former Department of Geography Chair)

Mohammad Ali Jazayery (Former CMES Director, former DOALL Director, Professor

         Emeritus MELC, founder of Persian Program)

W.P. Lehmann (Louann and Larry Temple Centennial Professor Emeritus in the

         Humanities, Department of Germanic Studies, Founder of the UT Centers for

         Middle Eastern and Asian Studies, Former CMES Director)

Carl Leiden (Professor Emeritus, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, former Associate

         Director and Acting Director)

James Neely (Professor Emeritus, Department of Anthropology)

Edgar C. Polomé (Christie and Stanley E. Adams Jr. Centennial Professor, Emeritus,

Department of Germanic Languages, Co- founder of Department of Oriental and African Languages and Literatures, DOALL[88])

William (Walt Whitman) Rostow[89] (Rex G. Baker, Jr. Professor Emeritus of Political

         Economy, Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs)

Denise Schmandt-Besserat (Professor Emeritus, Department of Art and Art History)

Antonio Ugalde (Professor Emeritus, Department of Sociology)

 

Shafeeq al-Ghabra (Department of Government)

Khaled Abou El Fadl (School of Law and Instructor, MELC)

Victorine Abboud (Curriculum and Instruction Lecturer, DOALL)

Mehdi Abedi (MELC/CMES)

Saheed Adejumobi (Assistant Instructor, Center for African and African American

         Studies)

Taghreed al-Qudsi (Assistant Instructor of Arabic, MELC)

Teirab AshShareef (Visiting Professor, CMES)

Aman Attieh (Senior Lecturer and Former Arabic Program Coordinator, MELC)

Persis Berlekamp (Assistant Professor, Department of Art and Art History)

Nina Berman (Associate Professor, Germanic Langs./MELC, Former CMES

         Associate Director)

Carol Bertram (Visiting Lecturer, CMES and the Department of Art and Art History)

James Bill (Former CMES Director, Government)

Elizabeth Bishop (Visiting Lecturer, Department of History)

Roy B. Blizzard Jr. (Adjunct Assistant Professor, CMES and DOALL)

Mehrzad Boroujerdi (Visiting Professor, CMES)

Naima Boussofara (Assistant Instructor of Arabic, MELC)

Vincente Cantarino (Professor, Departments of Spanish and Portuguese and Oriental and

         African Languages, Chairman of the Medieval Studies Program)

Gilbert Cardenas (Professor, Department of Sociology)

Donald P. Cole (Adjunct Professor, CMES)

Erwin Cook (Associate Professor, Department of Classics)

Hamid Dabashi (DOALL)

Virginia Danielson (Visiting Professor, CMES)

William Darity, Jr. (Professor, Department of Economics)

John Downing (John T. Jones, Jr. Centennial Professor of Communication, Former Chair

         of the Department of Radio, Television, and Film)

Allen Douglas (Department of History)

Shifra Epstein (DOALL)

Mansour Farhang (CMES/DMES)

James Faris (Visiting Professor, Center for Middle Eastern Studies)

Sheila Fitzpatrick (Department of History, Co-Chair of Soviet and East European

         Program)

Esther Fuchs (MELC, Hebrew)

Robert German (Visiting Professor of Public Affairs)

Izzat Ghurani (Visiting Professor, CMES)

Zilla J. Goodman (Assistant Professor, MELC)

James Grehan (Visiting Lecturer, History)

Akile Gürsoy-Tezcan (Visiting Professor, CMES and the Department of Sociology)

Dieter Haller (Professor, Germanic Langs. and Cultures)

Walid Hamarneh (Assistant Professor, MELC)

Fatiha Hamitouche (Visiting Professor, CMES, Center for Women’s Studies, and the

         Department of Sociology)

Deborah Harrold (Visiting Professor, Department of Government)

Sherman Jackson (Assistant Professor, MELC)

Akel Kahera (Assistant Professor, MELC)

Deborah Kapchan (Associate Professor of Anthropology, former Director of the Americo

         Paredes Center for Cultural Studies)

Ahmed Karimi-Hakkak (Lecturer, Department of English)

Resat Kasab (International Studies)

Mubeccel Kiray (Visiting Professor, CMES)

Güliz Kuruoglu (Associate Professor, MELC)

Daniel Laufer (Lecturer, Marketing Administration)

Walter Lehn (Professor, Department English, former CMES Director)

Hilary Waardenburg-Kilpatrick (Visiting Professor, CMES)

Fedwa Malti-Douglas (Former CMES Associate Director, MELC)

Irving Mandelbaum (Associate Professor, DOALL)

David Martinez (Associate Professor, Classics)

Khaled Mattawa (Assistant Professor, Creative Writing Department of the Department of

         English)

Yair Mazor (Assistant Professor, DOALL)

Jaget Mehta (Visiting Professor of Public Affairs and Asian Studies)

Elizabeth Meyers (Department of Art and Art History)

Ahmed Ali Morsy (Visiting Professor, CMES)

Ayshegul Musallam (Assistant Instructor, DOALL)

Kristina Nelson (Department of Musicology)

Roger Owen (Visiting Professor, CMES)

Donald Quataert (Visiting Professor, CMES and DOALL)

Anne Rasmussen (Lecturer, Department of Music and CMES)

Gregory Rose (Department of Government)

Candelario Saenz (Department of Anthropology)

Tagi Sagafi-Nejad (Department of Economics)

Claudio Segre (Department of History)

Jonathan H. Shannon (Visiting Professor, Department of Anthropology)

Eisig Silberschlag (Visiting Gale Professor of Judaic Studies, CMES Research Associate)

Mark Southern (Assistant Professor, Germanic Langs.)

Robert Stookey (CMES Research Associate)

Poopak Taati (Department of Sociology)

Ramon Tasat (Department of Music)

Cem Taylan (Visiting Professor, CMES)

Esser Taylan (Visiting Scholar, MELC)

Robert Vitalis (Assistant Professor, Department of Government)

Jacques Waardenburg (Visiting Professor, CMES)

John Williams (Department of Art and Art History)

Caroline Williams (Department of Architecture/CMES)

Barbara Wolbert (Visiting Associate Professor, Germanic Langs.)

Paul Zissos (Assistant Professor, Department of Classics)

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