Concentrations

MAAS students design an interdisciplinary program of study and develop expertise on contemporary issues relevant to the Middle East and North Africa, including:

• Statecraft, Governance, and Authoritarianism
• International Development
• Refugees and Humanitarian Emergencies
• Business and Diplomacy
• Women and Gender Studies
• Arts, Literature, and Culture
• U.S. Foreign Policy
• Historiography and Archival Research
• Water and Resources
• Human Rights and Law

To help achieve this, students choose from one of the five concentrations listed below and must take two core courses for that concentration as part of the overall degree requirements. Students may change their declared concentration at any time, as long as they have met the requirements for that concentration before graduation.

The core courses for the respective concentrations are:

Culture and Society

• ARST-518, Culture and Society of the Arab World
• ARST-640, Development in the Arab World OR ARST-532, Women and Gender in the Arab World

Development

• ARST-640, Development in the Arab World
• ARST-564, Economics of the Middle East

History

• HIST-760, Arab Historiography
• One seminar in Middle East history, such as HIST-863/864

Politics

• ARST-625, Comparative Politics of the Middle East
• ARST-619, International Relations of the Middle East

Women and Gender

• ARST-532 Women and Gender in the Arab World
• ARST-640, Development in the Arab World OR ARST-518, Culture and Society of the Arab World