Dear colleagues and friends,
This year marked the beginning of a new chapter for the Center for Middle East Studies at Brown. It became an independent center on July 1, 2025, leaving its longtime home in the Watson Institute — now the Watson School — of International and Public Affairs. It has been a year of program building and rich collaborations with other centers on campus.
Some highlights of 2025-26 include “American-Islamic Exchanges in the Long 19th Century,” a year-long multi-event initiative that explored the circulation of peoples, commodities, artworks and texts between the United States and the Islamic world from the American Revolutionary War to the early 20th century. Another new series, “Vision 20XX,” featured panel discussions about the ambitious national agendas that have emerged in the GCC states over the past decade (e.g., Saudi Vision 2030 and UAE Vision 2071), exploring topics such as “giga-projects” and Gulf foreign policy. Finally, we launched “Shahbandar,” a program for sponsoring self-directed reading groups for students, faculty and staff.
In addition to these new programs, CMES continued to host its long-running research initiatives in Palestinian studies, Iranian studies and gender studies. The celebrated novelist Isabella Hammad delivered the annual Mahmoud Darwish Lecture and CMES held several events focused on the reconstruction of Gaza, including a virtual reality exhibit organized by Orwa Switat, the postdoctoral research associate in Palestinian studies. The protests in Iran and the ensuing U.S. and Israeli attack on that country were the subject of two highly attended events in spring 2026. Vivian Salama, staff writer at The Atlantic and former White House correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, addressed our community about her experience covering the Trump administration and its Middle East policy. We sponsored a workshop titled “The Filiation and Affiliation of Jews, Muslims and Others” organized by the Program in Judaic Studies and co-organized a conversation with the renowned Syrian clarinetist and composer Kinan Azmeh, together with the Department of Music. This small sample of the year's activities testifies to the extraordinary vibrancy of Brown's scholarly community.
In closing, I thank our wonderful staff for their dedication to our students and faculty, and wish you all a peaceful summer.
Elias Muhanna
Director, Center for Middle East Studies