UNC Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies

UNC Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies We promote the understandingof the Middle East through teaching, research, and community outreach.

The Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies promotes understanding of the Middle East through teaching, research, and community outreach. Our center is distinguished by its cross-regional approach to Middle East studies, one that breaks down area studies barriers in order to track global flows of ideas, commodities, and people. The Center is part of the North Carolina Consortium for Middle East

Studies, a collaboration between Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

In cooperation with the Being Human Festival and the National Humanities Center, CMEIS is proud to announce that our ann...
04/10/2026

In cooperation with the Being Human Festival and the National Humanities Center, CMEIS is proud to announce that our annual Arab American Heritage Festival will take place on May 1st at 6PM. This will be the final event hosted by the Center for Middle East and Islamic studies before our scheduled closure in June, so we really hope you can join us.

Please register at https://go.unc.edu/ArabHeritage26 to say goodbye and see performances by:

Amal Kassir, an activist and award-wining Syrian-American spoken word poet that currently serves as the Poet Laureate of Hillsborough, North Carolina.

The Travis Williams Group, a collaborative of world class musicians playing original compositions influenced by traditional Arabic Maqam music, modern jazz, Appalachian roots and world music from Africa and Latin America.

The Triangle Lebanese American Center Dabke Group, a team of skilled performers annually featured at Raleigh's Lebanese American Festival.

Please join us this Wednesday, April 1st for the final installment of the CMEIS Annual Lecture Series. We will be welcom...
03/30/2026

Please join us this Wednesday, April 1st for the final installment of the CMEIS Annual Lecture Series. We will be welcoming Dr. James Gustafson of Indiana State University to discuss "Iran’s Little Ice Age Crisis: Climate Change in Historical Perspective."

Iran is experiencing severe environmental challenges today which have been worsened by warfare, poor environmental management, and the effects of global warming. Water shortages and pollution in the capital of Tehran have reached the point that the Islamic Republic recently announced plans to relocate the capital to the Persian Gulf coast. These problems have recently made international news, but they are far from new. This lecture will help inform our understandings of climate change in Iran’s history through a case study from another critical moment in the 18th century when decades of ongoing famine and disease epidemics combined with state breakdown and warfare to create a severe and long-lasting environmental crisis. This was part of the global Little Ice Age which impacted societies across the northern hemisphere in the early modern period.

The Iranian Plateau is one of the most arid regions in Eurasia and was especially vulnerable to the effects of the drier, cooler weather brought on by the Little Ice Age. This lecture will argue that climate change and its impacts in the Safavid Empire (1501-1722) were critical to shaping Iran’s trajectory from a powerful land empire to a weakened and divided state by the 19th century.

Last Friday, we hosted our final iftar as the Center for Middle East & Islamic Studies at UNC. It has been been our hono...
03/11/2026

Last Friday, we hosted our final iftar as the Center for Middle East & Islamic Studies at UNC. It has been been our honor to work with the UNC Muslim Students Association over the years to serve and celebrate over 200 students at this annual event.

This incredible evening would not have been possible without the generous support of@Mediterranean Deli, Bakery and Catering. This treasured local institution donated delicious kebabs, hummus, salads, and more to help us celebrate with our community.

Gratitude is due as well to UNC's Arabic Speaker's Club and Ustaaza Caroline Simmons Sibley for preparing additional dishes from across the Arab world for all to enjoy. We also received support from out fellow area studies centers Carolina Asia Center and the UNC Center for Slavic, Eurasian & East European Studies. A huge thank you to all for making this celebration so rewarding.

Tomorrow at 5PM for an Emergency Webinar: "From Uprising to Airstrikes, What Do We Miss About Iran?" The panel brings to...
03/09/2026

Tomorrow at 5PM for an Emergency Webinar: "From Uprising to Airstrikes, What Do We Miss About Iran?"

The panel brings together scholars of Iranian Studies to examine the unfolding crisis in Iran, from the nationwide protests and violent state crackdown in January 2026 to the escalating regional war that followed. The discussion asks what is often overlooked when Iran is framed primarily through the lens of geopolitics or military confrontation. Panelists will explore how domestic unrest, political repression, economic pressures, sanctions, and regional rivalries intersect in shaping Iran’s current trajectory. By placing recent events in historical and political context, the panel highlights the perspectives of Iranian society and considers what these developments may mean for Iran’s future and the broader Middle East.

Register & receive the zoom link via: https://go.unc.edu/cmeis3

Join us this evening for a panel discussion examining the economic prospects of Iran in a potential post-Islamic Republi...
03/09/2026

Join us this evening for a panel discussion examining the economic prospects of Iran in a potential post-Islamic Republic transition. Experts will discuss immediate economic stabilization challenges, medium- and long-term economic planning, and policy frameworks being developed by Iranian policy groups. This will include a critical analysis of the Iran Prosperity Plan (IPP). Register & receive the link via: https://go.unc.edu/cmeis2

Copies of Ta-Nehisi Coates' The Message are still available for our discussion next week! Dr. Elyse Crystall will lead t...
03/05/2026

Copies of Ta-Nehisi Coates' The Message are still available for our discussion next week! Dr. Elyse Crystall will lead the next installment of our Reading Palestine discussion series on Wednesday, March 11th at 5:30PM.

Register here: https://go.unc.edu/themessage

"Written at a dramatic moment in American and global life, this work from one of the country’s most important writers is about the urgent need to untangle ourselves from the destructive myths that shape our world—and our own souls—and embrace the liberating power of even the most difficult truths."

Please join us this evening at 5:30PM in Carolina Hall Room 220 for a discussion with Dr. William Sherman, Professor of ...
03/05/2026

Please join us this evening at 5:30PM in Carolina Hall Room 220 for a discussion with Dr. William Sherman, Professor of Religious Studies at UNC Charlotte.

Sherman’s award-winning book Singing with the Mountains: The Language of God in the Afghan Highlands centers on the 16th century Roshani­yya messianic community. Known for their tradition of linguistic experimentation, the first known literary use of vernacular Pashto occurs in an eclectic, Roshani imitation of the Qur’an. In the example of the Roshaniyya, Sherman discovers a set of questions and anxieties about the capacities of language that pervaded Sufi orders, imperial courts, and scholastic networks throughout Central and South Asia.

Join Dr. Elyse Crystall on Wednesday, March 11th at 5:30PM for the next installment of the Reading Palestine discussion ...
02/24/2026

Join Dr. Elyse Crystall on Wednesday, March 11th at 5:30PM for the next installment of the Reading Palestine discussion series. We will be discussing The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates & the first 20 registrants will receive a free physical copy of the text.

Register here: https://go.unc.edu/themessage

About the text: "Ta-Nehisi Coates originally set out to write a book about writing, in the tradition of Orwell’s classic “Politics and the English Language,” but found himself grappling with deeper questions about how our stories—our reporting and imaginative narratives and mythmaking—expose and distort our realities.

In the first of the book’s three intertwining essays, Coates, on his first trip to Africa, finds himself in two places at once: in Dakar, a modern city in Senegal, and in a mythic kingdom in his mind. Then he takes readers along with him to Columbia, South Carolina, where he reports on his own book’s banning, but also explores the larger backlash to the nation’s recent reckoning with history and the deeply rooted American mythology so visible in that city—a capital of the Confederacy with statues of segregationists looming over its public squares. Finally, in the book’s longest section, Coates travels to Palestine, where he sees with devastating clarity how easily we are misled by nationalist narratives, and the tragedy that lies in the clash between the stories we tell and the reality of life on the ground.

Written at a dramatic moment in American and global life, this work from one of the country’s most important writers is about the urgent need to untangle ourselves from the destructive myths that shape our world—and our own souls—and embrace the liberating power of even the most difficult truths."

Please join us at 6PM on March 6th in the atrium of the FedEx Global Education Center! In light of our impending closure...
02/20/2026

Please join us at 6PM on March 6th in the atrium of the FedEx Global Education Center! In light of our impending closure, this will be the final iftar hosted by the Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies. We are really looking forward to celebrating with our community during these difficult times.

Registration is required and will be closed once the maximum of 250 attendees has been reached. Please individually register all participants at

https://go.unc.edu/CMEISIftar2026

This iftar is made possible by generous support from Med Deli and our incredible co-sponsors UNC Muslim Students Association, Carolina Asia Center, UNC Center for Slavic, Eurasian & East European Studies, UNC Arab Students Organization, and Nadi Al-Mutakalimeen / The UNC Arabic Department.

Join us tomorrow at 5:30PM on the 4th floor of the FedEx Global Education center!Though CMEIS' doors will be shuttered b...
02/11/2026

Join us tomorrow at 5:30PM on the 4th floor of the FedEx Global Education center!

Though CMEIS' doors will be shuttered by the university at the end of this academic year, we have many important and engaging events scheduled for this spring. We invite you to FedEx this semester to grieve this loss in community and reaffirm our collective commitment to continue this work.

Address

3023 FedEx Global Education Center, 301 Pittsboro Street
Chapel Hill, NC
27599

Opening Hours

Monday 7:30am - 7:30pm
Tuesday 7:30am - 7:30pm
Wednesday 7:30am - 7:30pm
Thursday 7:30am - 7:30pm

Telephone

+19199622034

Website

https://go.unc.edu/givemideast

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