Middle East Studies Association

Middle East Studies Association
Name	Middle East Studies Association
Abbreviation	MESA
Formation	1966
Type	Learned society
Headquarters	United States
Region served	Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia

Contents

Middle East Studies Association is a scholarly association founded in 1966 that brings together academics, researchers, and practitioners working on the Middle East, North Africa, and adjacent regions. The association promotes research, teaching, and public engagement on subjects related to the region and convenes annual meetings, panels, and publications that intersect with fields represented by scholars affiliated with Harvard University, Columbia University, University of Chicago, Stanford University, and University of Oxford. Its membership has included faculty from Princeton University, Yale University, University of California, Berkeley, University of Michigan, and international institutions such as American University of Beirut, Tel Aviv University, Cairo University, University of Tehran, and Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

History

MESA was founded amid the expansion of area studies after World War II and the Suez Crisis, influenced by scholars tied to programs like the Ford Foundation Fellowships, the Carnegie Corporation, and initiatives at Columbia University and Harvard University that nurtured specialists in Arabic language, Persian language, Turkish language, and Hebrew language. Early membership included researchers who worked on topics related to the Ottoman Empire, the Safavid dynasty, the Umayyad Caliphate, the Abbasid Caliphate, and studies of the Crusades in the Levant. Throughout the Cold War era, the association engaged with debates shaped by events such as the Six-Day War, the Yom Kippur War, the Iranian Revolution, and the Lebanese Civil War, and later adapted its focus to issues raised by the Gulf War, the Iraq War, the Arab Spring, and the Syrian Civil War. Institutional developments intersected with major research centers including the Middle East Institute, the Arab Studies Institute, the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, and international partnerships with the British Institute at Ankara and the Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale.

MESA is governed by an elected council and an executive director drawn from scholars affiliated with institutions such as University of Cambridge, King's College London, McGill University, University of Toronto, and University of Edinburgh. Governance follows bylaws shaped by precedents at learned societies like the American Historical Association, the Modern Language Association, and the American Political Science Association. Committees and caucuses reflect intellectual currents linked to specialists in Islamic studies, Jewish studies, Coptic studies, Assyriology, Byzantine studies, and scholars with training from programs at SOAS University of London, Leiden University, Colgate University, and Indiana University Bloomington. Advisory boards have included members with fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Science Foundation, and awards such as the MacArthur Fellowship.

Members come from universities, museums, archives, and policy centers such as the British Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Library of Congress, and think tanks like the Brookings Institution, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the Council on Foreign Relations. Regional chapters and affiliated groups operate in cities associated with higher education networks including Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago, Boston, Washington, D.C., Toronto, Montreal, London, Paris, Berlin, and Beirut. Membership categories accommodate graduate students, emeriti faculty, independent researchers, and practitioners connected to programs at Princeton Theological Seminary, Georgetown University, University of Texas at Austin, University of Pennsylvania, and international centers like the American University in Cairo and the German Archaeological Institute.

The association organizes annual meetings that host panels on topics spanning archaeology, literature, history, law, and visual culture, attracting presenters from Yale Law School, Harvard Divinity School, Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, SOAS, and regional institutes including the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago. MESA publishes newsletters, bulletins, and bibliographies alongside journals produced by affiliated presses such as Brill, Cornell University Press, Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, and University of California Press. Its programming has included collaborations with museums and archives like the Pergamon Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the British Library, and the Bibliothèque nationale de France, and has linked to digital projects hosted by the Digital Humanities initiatives at Stanford University and King's College London.

The association administers prizes and grants recognizing monographs, dissertations, translations, and teaching innovation, similar in scope to awards such as the British Academy Prize, the American Council of Learned Societies fellowships, and the Taylor Prize. Recipients have included scholars whose work addresses topics related to the Ottoman archives, Safavid art, Mamluk architecture, Persian poetry, Arabic prose, Hebrew liturgy, and fieldwork in regions affected by treaties like the Treaty of Sèvres and the Sykes–Picot Agreement. Grant programs have partnered with foundations including the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Henry Luce Foundation to support research on manuscripts held at institutions such as the Süleymaniye Library, the Dār al-Kutub, and the Bodleian Library.

The association has at times issued public statements on events including responses to the Gaza War (2008–2009), the 2011 Egyptian Revolution, and policies by states like the United States and the European Union concerning visa restrictions and academic freedom. Debates within the membership have echoed controversies involving academic boycott movements associated with organizations like Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions and prompted discussion comparable to disputes seen at the Modern Language Association and the American Historical Association. Institutional decisions on panels and resolutions have generated responses from universities such as Harvard University, Columbia University, and University of California campuses, as well as coverage involving media outlets linked to The New York Times, The Guardian, and Al Jazeera. The association continues to balance scholarly norms exemplified by the American Association of University Professors with advocacy on human rights issues raised by organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.

Category:Learned societies Category:Area studies