Contact Us
Battelle Tompkins, Room T-23 on a map
Arab World Studies 4400 Massachusetts Avenue NW Washington, DC 20016 United StatesArab World Studies
The Arab World Studies Program is purposefully housed in the College of Arts and Sciences and is a founding member of the Department of Critical Race, Gender, and Culture Studies. These relationships allow us to offer a comprehensive view of the Arab world, taking into consideration the organization of everyday life, politics, literature, film, religion, gender dynamics, and history of the region as topics of interest in their own right.
Arab World Studies draws from a wide spectrum of experts and courses across the University, affording students the opportunity to learn with both breadth and depth. We benefit from the expertise on the region available across AU's campus starting with CAS, but also including relationships with faculty from the School of International Service, the School of Public Affairs, the School of Communications, and the Kogod School of Business.
Our program offers both an undergraduate BA in Arab World Studies and a Minor. The Arab World Studies program encourages interdisciplinary work, including Arabic language acquisition and study abroad opportunities -- see also Arabic Language programs and courses.
We invite you to learn with us about the diverse and dynamic Arab world in a spirit of collegiality and generous inquiry.
Announcements
Jewish Arabness, Zionism, & the Politics of Elimination
October 30, 2:30 – 4:00 p.m. | MGC 128
Join the Arab World Studies Program for an event titled, “Jewish Arabness, Zionism, & the Politics of Elimination” with Massoud Hayoun, an award-winning author, journalist, and artist, in conversation with Arab World Studies Program Director, Irene Calis. Our Arab World Studies fall event is co-sponsored with the Antiracist Research & Policy Center, the Ethnographies of Empire Research Cluster, and the Department of Anthropology.
Is this How you Eat a Watermelon?
AWST Professor and poet Zein El Amine’s forthcoming new book of short stories was published on Nov. 8 and includes an exciting book tour around the country.
Professor Irene Calis, with Prof Rochelle Davis at Georgetown University, launch 2022-23 virtual Speaker Series "Palestine: Land, Life Dignity".
Professor Zein El-Amine served as translator and interpreter for the Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Ian Urbina’s recent article in the New Yorker.
Dr. Abdallah Hendawy, Adjunct Professorial Lecturer in the Arab World Studies program, has just published a new book, Bleeding Hearts: From Passionate Activism to Violent Insurgency in Egypt, which is currently the number three best-seller on Amazon’s Middle Eastern Studies list. Bleeding Hearts examines the wave of violence that broke out in Egypt in the aftermath of the 2013 military takeover against the country’s first democratically elected president. Abdallah Hendawy sheds light on the stories of several political activists who abandoned their commitment to nonviolence and took up arms against the state. Through multiple interviews, ethnographic observations, fieldwork, and qualitative data analysis, Hendawy challenges the dominant theoretical paradigms on radicalization that often attribute this complex phenomenon to ideological or religious beliefs. Instead, Hendawy shows that rigid state authoritarianism, especially sustained repression targeting peaceful activists, turned them toward armed resistance.
Statement in Solidarity with Anti-Racist Efforts from CRGC
The faculty of the Department of Critical Race, Gender, and Culture Studies join with protesters across the world to denounce police brutality and systemic anti-Black violence.