We train and certify scholars for a rapidly globalizing world with redefined relations between the West and the Middle East.
About the Program
The Dual Ph.D. in Anthropology-Middle Eastern and North African Studies (MENAS) at the University of Arizona is the first program in the United States to provide a formal institutional setting for simultaneous doctoral training and professional certification in these two disciplines.
The program builds on the long traditions of excellence and interdisciplinary dialogue that have characterized both departments for decades. It involves faculty from both departments as well as affiliated professors in other departments on campus who share a vision of interdisciplinary research focusing on Sociocultural or Linguistic and Middle Eastern and North African Studies at the University of Arizona.
From Anthropology, students gain a conceptual and analytical apparatus for studying the complexity and diversity of cultures. They also receive training in the theory and method of ethnographic fieldwork and comparative research. From MENAS, students receive rigorous language training available in Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, and Turkish, and scholarly expertise in histories, literatures, religions, and the material and popular culture of Middle Eastern societies.
This opportunity to combine comparative and theoretical breadth with linguistic and textual depth, and to develop research methods under the supervision of the core faculty, attracts the best students in both fields to the program.
Degree Requirements
The Anthropology-MENAS dual Ph.D. degree requires 105 total academic units.