UC Davis Middle East/South Asia Studies

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The Middle East/South Asia Studies Program is pleased to announce that the review of the proposal for the MAJOR IN MIDDLE EAST/SOUTH ASIA STUDIES was SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETED in November of 2007.

The NEW MAJOR IN MIDDLE EAST/SOUTH ASIA STUDIES will be available to undergraduate students in the Fall of 2008. Interested students are encouraged to take the appropriate courses as soon as they can and to see a ME/SA advisor at their convenience. Click here for the check list of required courses for the ME/SA major.

The minor in Middle East/South Asia Studies covers an area of utmost historical, cultural, economic and geopolitical significance. Afghanistan and Central Asia form a bridge between these two regions. The Middle East and South Asia is the birthplace of major world religions including Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, and Hinduism. Also originating in the area are Zoroastrianism and the Baha'i faith out of Iran and Jainism and Sikhism in India. The Middle East has given rise to two of the first great empires, those of Egypt and of Mesopotamia; the Indus valley civilization, of equal antiquity, arose in South Asia. Major languages of the Middle East are Arabic, Hebrew, Persian and Turkish; those of South Asia include Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Sinhala, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu.  Combined, the Middle East and South Asia are home to more than a quarter of the world human population, with India being the most populous country (at over one billion) in South Asia and Egypt (nearly 70 million) in the Middle East. The two areas are connected by the histories of religious exchanges over centuries; trade routes and the traffic in products, languages, and ideas; colonialism (especially British and French); diasporic movements of people; comparable family systems; ideologies of feminism and nationalisms and development paradigms in the 19th and 20th centuries.

UC Davis Middle East / South Asia Studies Program
Phone: 530.754.4926
Facsimilie: 530.754.4925