Department of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures

“Nowruz, the Persian New Year which takes place this Saturday, is a time for new beginnings. For President Biden it will mark the first occasion to offer a message directly to the Iranian people and perhaps hint at how his administration may approach the issue of Iran,” write Aria Fani, assistant professor of near Eastern languages and civilization, and Kevin Schwartz of the Czech Academy of Sciences.

College of Arts & Sciences Dean Stacey explains that there is an important civic, political, social, and cultural element to an education and that you can get that in a wide variety of majors.

Interested in the College of Arts & Sciences but don’t know what to study? Here are six majors that you may not have discovered yet.

A $500,000 grant from Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute to the University of Washington establishes the Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Professor of Persian and Iranian Studies, named in honor of Dr. Mir-Djalali, the scholar and philanthropist who founded the Institute in 2000. 

Aria Fani, Iranian immigrant and assistant professor of Near Eastern Languages and Civilization is profiled in this article on the experiences of Iranian immigrants amid US-Iran conflict.

Ryan Robinson (BA, 2019) digs deep for archaeological research.

This week in the arts, visit a graduation exhibition, attend the premier of “Lynch: A History'” at SIFF, see “Nina Simone: Four Women” at the Rep., and more!

Selim Kuru's love of literature all started with his mother, "she was an avid reader and had a library under lock and key and would release books for me according to my age."

James Clauss, professor of classics, challenges students to go in search of myth and meaning in moving making.

Near Eastern Languages and Civilization celebrates the Persian New Year.

Opinion piece by Ozgur Ozkan, a doctoral candidate at the Jackson School of International Studies and fellow with the department of Near Eastern languages and civilization.

The Population Health Initiative has awarded five pilot research grants to faculty-led teams from 10 different UW schools and colleges including the College of Arts & Sciences.

Faculty and students are digitizing historically valuable texts through Newbook Digital Texts.

Despite its historical importance, the classical language Ge’ez is taught at just three universities in the Western world — including the UW. 

As ancient cultural sites are pillaged in war-torn regions, a new course asks what can be done to stem the destruction.