(A partial
list of)
Centers for the Study of Islam in North America
Bard College is an undergraduate liberal arts
college located in the Hudson River valley, ninety miles north of
New York City. The Religion Program offers a B.A., engaging the
critical study of religion through courses in Islam, Judaism,
Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism, as well as in the
theoretical and comparative study of religion. Students in the
program are strongly encouraged to acquire expertise in one or
more languages taught at the College, such as Arabic, Aramaic,
Hebrew, or Sanskrit. For more information, contact Prof. Jonathan
Brockopp.
Duke University is a major research university
in Durham, North Carolina. The Department of Religion offers a
major with concentrations in Islamic, Christian, Jewish, and
Buddhist studies. The study of Islam is particularly featured in
the Graduate Program in Religion, with cognate language courses
provided through Asian and African Languages and Literature. The
professors associated with the study of Islam at the graduate
level include Bruce Lawrence, Kalman Bland and Ebrahim Moosa
(Religion), Miriam Cooke and Rkia Cornell (AALL), Katherine Ewing
(Cultural Anthropology), and John Richards (History). The
graduate study of Islam also has links and exchange opportunities
with the graduate departments of religion at both Emory and
UNC-CH.
Emory University is a major research university
in Atlanta, Georgia. The Department of Religion offers a major
with concentrations in Islamic, Christian, Jewish and South Asian
religious studies as well as in themes, such as gender, conflict,
and diaspora. The study of Islam is also featured in the Graduate
Division of Religion, West and South Asian Studies Program. The
Committee on the Study of Islam comprises ten faculty across the
University who have teaching and research expertise in Islamic
studies. The graduate study of Islam has links and exchange
opportunities with the graduate departments of religion at Duke
and UNC.
The University of California, Santa Barbara
offers MA and Ph.D. degrees focusing on various aspects of the
Middle East (ancient, medieval and modern), and specifically in
Islamic Studies, through the departments of Art History, History,
Ethnomusicology, Comparative Literature, Religious Studies,
Political Science and several smaller programs. UCSB has a
particularly interesting blend of graduate degrees in fields
commonly represented at research universities such as Political
Science and History, but in addition has a series of offerings in
the musical cultures of the Middle East, Arabic oral and folk
literatures and traditions, and Islamic Art History. UCSB has an
endowed chair in Islamic Studies and, in addition, is the current
home of the *International Journal of Middle East Studies*,
edited by Prof. Stephen Humphreys. These graduate degrees are all
linked through an umbrella organization, the Program in Islamic
and Near Eastern Studies, which also oversees the undergraduate
B.A. degree in Islamic and Near Eastern Studies. For further
information, contact Prof. Dwight F. Reynolds.
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,
the nation's oldest public university (est. 1793), offers through
its Department of Religious Studies a comprehensive undergraduate
major and minor for the B.A. degree, as well as a graduate
program for the M.A. and Ph.D. degrees. Its fourteen faculty
members cover a wide range of subjects across a variety of
religious traditions. Islamic studies can be pursued on the
graduate level through the History of Religions track, in close
cooperation with the Department of Religion at Duke University
(which has a fully cooperative relationship with UNC for
cross-registration). A similar relation is being established with
Emory University, through the Carolina-Duke-Emory Consortium for
the Study of Islam. Relevant research groups for Islamic studies
at UNC include the Carolina Seminar for Comparative Islamic
Studies, the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean Studies Program, and
the Triangle South Asia Consortium.
The University of Washington is a public
research university situated onthe shores of Lake Washington near
downtown Seattle. Undergraduate and graduate programs in Islamic
Studies draw on about two-dozen faculty members from various
departments. Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Tajik, Uzbek, Urdu,
Bengali, and Indonesian are among the languages offered.
IslamicStudies are also supported by large interdisciplinary
undergraduate and graduate programs in Comparative Religion,
Jewish Studies, Buddhist Studies, and International Studies. Many
related activities and exchange programs are coordinated through
the Middle East Studies Center, and through the new Center for
Islamic Studies and Liberal Arts. For more information, contact
Prof. Brannon Wheeler.
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