The King Fahd Center for Middle East Studies is an interdisciplinary program in the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, dedicated to the study of the modern Middle East and the geo-cultural area in which Islamic civilization prospered, and continues to shape world history. Faculty members associated with the Center are rooted in degree-granting departments in Fulbright College and the broader
University of Arkansas. We specialize in history and politics, literature and popular culture, religious and secular practice and interpretation, human engagement with the environment and ecosystem in contemporary times and antiquity. We work in diverse media: poetry and fiction, public archives, film and music, television and oratory, curricular instruction and cartography, the detritus of the past and the cultural production, classical and colloquial, artistic and vulgar, of the present. The Center offers an undergraduate co-major linked to regional language study and supports the best of our undergrads with scholarships. Many of our undergraduates go on to graduate study in area studies programs and related professional work in public and private spheres. At the graduate level the Center supports students working in key disciplines towards the MA and PhD. Our graduate students have received highly competitive fellowships to support research and foreign language study, and have presented their work at annual professional meetings and specialized academic conferences. Many are now teaching at academic institutions here and abroad, and are affiliated with research institutes or government agencies.
