Center for South Asian & Middle Eastern Studies

CSAMES promotes research and scholarship on South Asia and the Middle East at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign .

The Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies (CSAMES) promotes research and scholarship on South Asia and the Middle East. Our goal is to engage students and faculty in critical discussions and to create research and learning opportunities about South Asia and the Middle East and the ways these regions are connected to the rest of the world. Through our MA Program in South Asian and Middl

08/03/2026

Impressive projects are endless at CSAMES! Congrats to Dr. Angela Williams on this amazing podcast collection! 🥳

07/29/2026

Let's listen to Professor Avital Livny tell us about her research on the Middle East and what it's like to sit in one of her classes. Read more: https://csames.illinois.edu/news/2026-07-29/conversation-professor-avital-livny.

07/24/2026

Faculty Spotlight, Professor Mukhtar Ali.
What draws someone to devote themselves to Islamic philosophy and the mysticism of Ibn ʿArabi?
In the first of our CSAMES Interview Series, Professor Mukhtar Ali tells us about his journey from the sciences into philosophy, his translation practices, and why poetry still matters in the modern age. Read more here: https://csames.illinois.edu/news/2026-07-23/conversation-professor-mukhtar-ali

Photos from Center for South Asian & Middle Eastern Studies's post

06/13/2026

What an impossible task to summarize these two days! We learned a lot from each other from the geography of the Middle East, to cultures, languages, ethnicities, and then back to the space of our classrooms, teaching resources, and how to connect better to our students with ideas for designing syllabi. It was a blast to spend time with these wonderful teachers and our amazing lecturers. Cherry on top? The Middle Eastern cuisine and live performance!