UNC Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies

UNC Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies We promote the understandingof the Middle East through teaching, research, and community outreach.

The Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies promotes understanding of the Middle East through teaching, research, and community outreach. Our center is distinguished by its cross-regional approach to Middle East studies, one that breaks down area studies barriers in order to track global flows of ideas, commodities, and people. The Center is part of the North Carolina Consortium for Middle East

Studies, a collaboration between Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

In cooperation with the Being Human Festival and the National Humanities Center, CMEIS is proud to announce that our ann...
04/10/2026

In cooperation with the Being Human Festival and the National Humanities Center, CMEIS is proud to announce that our annual Arab American Heritage Festival will take place on May 1st at 6PM. This will be the final event hosted by the Center for Middle East and Islamic studies before our scheduled closure in June, so we really hope you can join us.

Please register at https://go.unc.edu/ArabHeritage26 to say goodbye and see performances by:

Amal Kassir, an activist and award-wining Syrian-American spoken word poet that currently serves as the Poet Laureate of Hillsborough, North Carolina.

The Travis Williams Group, a collaborative of world class musicians playing original compositions influenced by traditional Arabic Maqam music, modern jazz, Appalachian roots and world music from Africa and Latin America.

The Triangle Lebanese American Center Dabke Group, a team of skilled performers annually featured at Raleigh's Lebanese American Festival.

Please join us this Wednesday, April 1st for the final installment of the CMEIS Annual Lecture Series. We will be welcom...
03/30/2026

Please join us this Wednesday, April 1st for the final installment of the CMEIS Annual Lecture Series. We will be welcoming Dr. James Gustafson of Indiana State University to discuss "Iran’s Little Ice Age Crisis: Climate Change in Historical Perspective."

Iran is experiencing severe environmental challenges today which have been worsened by warfare, poor environmental management, and the effects of global warming. Water shortages and pollution in the capital of Tehran have reached the point that the Islamic Republic recently announced plans to relocate the capital to the Persian Gulf coast. These problems have recently made international news, but they are far from new. This lecture will help inform our understandings of climate change in Iran’s history through a case study from another critical moment in the 18th century when decades of ongoing famine and disease epidemics combined with state breakdown and warfare to create a severe and long-lasting environmental crisis. This was part of the global Little Ice Age which impacted societies across the northern hemisphere in the early modern period.

The Iranian Plateau is one of the most arid regions in Eurasia and was especially vulnerable to the effects of the drier, cooler weather brought on by the Little Ice Age. This lecture will argue that climate change and its impacts in the Safavid Empire (1501-1722) were critical to shaping Iran’s trajectory from a powerful land empire to a weakened and divided state by the 19th century.

Address

3023 FedEx Global Education Center, 301 Pittsboro Street
Chapel Hill, NC
27599

Opening Hours

Monday 7:30am - 7:30pm
Tuesday 7:30am - 7:30pm
Wednesday 7:30am - 7:30pm
Thursday 7:30am - 7:30pm

Telephone

+19199622034

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