Welcome,
NU class of 2017!

Check out our First-year Focus pages for more information about the Asian Studies Program(ASP) & the program for Middle East and North Africa Studies(MENA)

Welcome to the Home Page of the Program of Asian and Middle East Studies (AMES) at Northwestern University!

Please note that this website is in transition. As of September 2012, the Asian Languages and Cultures major and Asian Studies minor have been administered by the Asian Studies Program (ASP), while the Middle East Languages and Cultures major and Middle East Studies minor have been administered by the Middle East-North Africa Program (MENA). These changes will allow the students and faculty of each program more opportunities to explore the languages, politics, social movements, cultural traditions, and literature and arts of Asia and the Middle East.

ASP and MENA provide opportunities for undergraduates to learn in depth about some part of the vast area covered by Asia and the Middle East. Some majors go on to law, management or medical schools with the intention of practicing their professions abroad where they can make use of their specialized area knowledge. Other majors move directly into jobs with schools or non-profit organizations or businesses. All students who take ASP and MENA courses enrich themselves by expanding their understanding and empathy for rich civilizations distant from American experience.

While Northwestern does not have Asian and Middle East Studies area programs at the graduate level, graduate students may study these areas in discipline-based departments such as History, Art History, Political Science, Comparative Literature, Anthropology and Sociology.  Additionally, starting in September 2013, MENA will have a graduate certificate and cluster program.

ASP and MENA include faculty specialists from Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences as well as other Northwestern schools. Both are programs rather than departments, meaning that they draw on the resources of many departmentally-based faculty to teach the courses in the program. They offer students of all schools at Northwestern the choice of a disciplinary major, an adjunct major, or a minor, with concentrations on East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, and the Middle East and North Africa. ASP and MENA each offers a major and a minor. Language study is an integral part of the majors, and both programs encourage students to study abroad. Each also offers an honors program in which majors may complete an independent study and write a senior research thesis. See the program director for help in academic planning.

The new MENA website can be found at http://www.mena.northwestern.edu/index.html.

ASP will soon have a new website, as well. (Once that website comes online, the AMES website will disappear.) ASP maintains a lively Facebook page, which features announcements of talks, films, and other programs, as well as a curated collection of intriguing articles, images, videos, and other gleanings from the internet. Read us and “like” us! https://www.facebook.com/NorthwesternUniversityAsianStudiesProgram

Peter Carroll
Director, Asian Studies Program, and Associate Professor, History

Jessica Winegar
Director, Middle East-North Africa Program, and Associate Professor, Anthropology