USC Department of Middle East Studies

Huge congratulations to the winners of the 2026 Middle East Studies Award and Language Awards in Arabic and Persian: Wendy Wang, Amitis Akbari, Laya Khan, Nikki Moktari, and Batul Saifee!!! 🏆🎉🎊

Iranian Studies minor Nikki Moktari at the Global Ecologies conference ✌️

An ENORMOUS thank you to everyone who attended “Globalized Ecologies: California and the Middle East,” and most of all to our speakers for making yesterday’s event such a huge success. Pictured here, from left to right: Dr. Ramzi Rouighi (USC), Dr. Ciruce Movahedi-Lankarani (USC), Dr. William Deverell (USC), Dr. Darren Dochuk (Notre Dame), Dr. James Tejani (CalPoly), Dr. Leila Harris (UBC), Dr. Mandana Limbert (CUNY), Dr. Kaveh Ehsani (DePaul), Dr. Natalie Koch (Syracuse), and Dr. Bandar Alsaeed (USC). Not pictured: Dr. Joanne Nucho (USC).

Thank you to everyone who joined us for yesterday’s Spotlight On: The US/Israel-Iran War— and thank you to our brilliant faculty panelists for their insights.

NEXT WEDNESDAY: Spotlight On: The US/Israel-Iran War. Join us a week from today, when a panel of three USC faculty members will discuss and help illuminate the ongoing conflict.

Join the department this coming Monday for a Book Discussion with Dr. Paul Kohlbry on his book, “Plots and Deeds: Agrarian Annihilation and the Fight for Land Justice in Palestine.” Please use the QR code to RSVP. We hope to see you there!

Thank you to all who attended today’s Academic Open House and Nowruz Celebration! Good luck with registration this week, and we look forward to seeing you in our fall courses! ✌️

RSVP now to join the Department next month for GLOBALIZED ECOLOGIES: CALIFORNIA & THE MIDDLE EAST, a daylong conference on extraction, environment, and infrastructure.

Next Thursday, March 12: join us as student Leila MacKenzie presents photographs from her summer of volunteer and fieldwork in Palestine.

TODAY: presents “Monuments Decolonized: Algeria’s French Colonial Heritage” with Dr. Susan Slyomovics. 👉 Please note the change of location to MCB 101. See you there!