Near and Middle Eastern Studies

Entry requirements

Please visit our website for further information on entry requirements.

Months of entry

September

Course content

The list of the staff of the Department provides information on the main areas of teaching and research, and supervision for research students can be provided across this wide range.

Some Recent Research Theses

• Siba Aldabbagh Word and Image in Visual Art and Poetry from the Arab World
• Charis Bredin Creaturely Encounters: Animals in the Libyan literary imaginary
• Izabella Czyzewska How to Pray to Hittite Gods: A Semantic andContextual Analysis of Hittite Prayer Terminology with the New Editions of Selected Prayers of Muršili II
• Maria De Cillis The Discourse of Compromise: Theoretical Constructs of Free Will and Predestination in the Works of Avicenna, Ghazālī and Ibn ʿArabī.
• Jacob Eriksson Swedish mediation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: a study of the utility of small-state mediation and Track II diplomacy.
• Benjamin Geer Priests of the Nation: Nationalism and Power in Modern Egyptian
  Literature and Cinema.
• Alyn D. Hine Russian Literature in the Works of Mikhail Nu'ayma
• Christie Johnson Authorship in Kitab al-aghani: production, reception, subjectivit
• Walid Khazendar Place in the Making: A Study on Image-Making in Early Arabic Poetry.
• Maha Abdel Megeed Muwaylihi's Isa ibn Hisham: Between 18th-Century Revival and 19th-Century Neoclassical Renaissance
• Krikor Moskofian Literature and Survival: Literary Criticism and the Construction of Cultural Identity in Armenian Printed Press of Diaspora 1919-1928.
• Khadiga Musa A Critical Edition of a Twelve/Eighteenth Century Manuscript on Legal Maxims: ‘Umdat al-Nazir fi’l-Ashbāh wa’l-Naẓā`ir.
• Laetitia Nanquette The Eye Sees Not Itself: Images of France and Iran Through Their Literatures (1979-2009).
• Hany Rashwan Literariness and aesthetics in ancient Egyptian literature: towards an Arabic-based critical approach - Jinās as a case study.
• Luis Siddall The reign of Adad-narari III.
• Ludek Vacín Shulgi of Ur: Life, Deeds, Ideology and Legacy of a Mesopotamian Ruler as Reflected Primarily in Literary Texts.
• Lisa Wilhelmi The Akkadian of Boğazköy

Academic Staff and their Research Areas

Professor Muhammad A S Abdel Haleem BA (Cairo) PHD (Cantab) FCIL (London)
Qur’an, Hadith, Tafsir; Islam in society; classical and modern Arabic literature

Dr George Dedes BA MA PhD (Harvard)
Early Anatolian Turkish; Ottoman language and literature; Ottoman history; Turkish-Greek relations; modern Turkish culture

Dr Ayman El-Desouky BA (American Univ. Cairo) MA PhD (Austin, Texas)
Comparative literature, 19th and 20th-century Arabic literature, hermeneutics, modern philosophy and theory

Professor Andrew R George BA PhD (Birmingham) FBA
Cuneiform and Ancient Mesopotamian studies

Dr Marlé Hammond BA MA PhD (Columbia University)
Classical and Modern Arabic Literature and Poetics; Egyptian and Arabic Cinemas; Women's Writing; Folkloric Narrative

Professor Hugh Kennedy PhD (Cantab)
Medieval history of Arabic-speaking lands

Dr Karima Laachir BA (Abdelmalek Essadi University, Tetouan Morocco) MA PhD (Leeds) PGCHE (Birmingham)
Comparative postcolonial literature (Arabophone, Francophone and Anglophone), Arabic popular culture, Diasporic cultural productions,literature of the North African diaspora (Beur), exclusion of ethnic minorities in Europe with a specific focus on France, postcolonialism and colonial legacies, Islam and Islamophobia.

Dr Chris Lucas BA (SOAS) MA PhD (Cantab)
Grammatical change and the interface between syntax, semantics and pragmatics in Arabic and other Afro-Asiatic languages, and in English and other (Indo-)European languages.

Dr Nima Mina BA (Marburg) MMus PhD (Montreal)
Classical and Modern Persian literature, Orientalism in 18th-20thcentury Europe, Middle Eastern minority writers in Europe, Diaspora studies, music performance, translation studies

Professor Wen-Chin Ouyang BA BEd (Tripoli) MA MPhil PhD (Columbia University)
Classical and modern Arabic literature, The 1001 Nights and Arabic Popular Epics, Classical and modern Arabic Critical thought and theory, Networks of Circulation and World Literature, Semiotics of the Visual

Dr Mustafa Shah BA PhD (London)
The early Arabic linguistic tradition; classical Islamic theology and jurisprudence

Dr Ayman Shihadeh BA (London) MSt (Oxon) DPhil (Oxon)
Arabic philosophy; Islamic theology; ethical theory in Islam; Arabic paleography and codicology

Professor Stefan Sperl BA (Oxon) PhD (London)
Classical Arabic literature, medieval Arabic popular literature; court poetry and oral literature; refugee studies

Dr Yair Wallach BSc MA PhD (University of London)
Culture, Society and History of modern Israel/Palestine; Visual and Material Culture; Urban Studies; Israel-Palestine Conflict

Dr Mark Weeden
Hittite, Akkadian language and literature in Syria

Information for international students

For details, including English language requirements, please see SOAS website

Fees and funding

For details of postgraduate fees, please see SOAS website

Qualification and course duration

PhD

MPhil