Interested in MENA? Check back here for information, articles, photos, and event to keep you updated on what MENA @ BU is doing!
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The BA in Middle East and North Africa Studies offers BU undergraduates a coherent grounding in the history, cultures, artistic production, and one or more of the languages of the Middle East and North Africa region (which is defined for this purpose as comprising the Arabic-, Hebrew-, Persian-, and Turkish-speaking areas of the world). Requiring three years of language study and courses in both humanities and social sciences, this rigorous 11-course major prepares students for graduate study and for careers in government, international non-governmental organizations, and the private sector. Our graduates have marketable skills (cultural competence and real linguistic proficiency) as well as intellectual sophistication. The program involves faculty from eight departments and capitalizes on BU’s unusually strong offerings in four Middle Eastern languages (Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, and Turkish) and many aspects of Middle Eastern and North African culture and politics.
Welcome to the newest undergraduate major at BU! Not only will our majors graduate with at least three years of MENA language study and solid coursework in MENA-related humanities and social sciences, they also have the opportunity to grow as students in a thoughtful, supportive intellectual community. Our students analyze the disciplinary and other biases most prevalent in the MENA region and often replicated among those who study it. They engage in meaningful intellectual dialogue with students and faculty who come from a variety of disciplinary and political orientations. This lets them explore, deepen, and perhaps revise their own pre-existing beliefs and ideas about the MENA region.
