Research and Grants

Workshops and Seminars
MEMEAC sponsors a range of events each year highlighting recent and notable research in subject areas related to the Middle East. This includes the ongoing Dissections seminar series, which aims to showcase research in progress on the MENA region as well as workshops on specific topics.
Learn more about Upcoming and Past MEMEAC events
MESA Global Academy
Funded by the Carnegie Corporation
CUNY has joined forces with the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) — the largest international network of scholars specialized in the study of the region— to launch the Global Academy to integrate displaced scholars in the intellectual communities that comprise the field of Middle East studies in North America. The goal is to enable participating scholars to rebuild their professional networks and reconfigure their academic trajectories toward sustainable, permanent careers in a new context.
Learn more about the MESA Global Academy
Anny Bakalian Education fund
The Anny Bakalian Education Fund, generously supported by the former Associate Director of MEMEAC, provides awards to doctoral students for research as well as postdoctoral fellows depending on the year. It also sponsors an annual lecture series on research topics of interest of the center and Anny Bakalian's research foci.
H-Egypt
H-Egypt is a digital space and resource that is dedicated to the study of Egypt from the early Islamic period to the present. H-Egypt is governed by and designed for scholars of Egypt who are affiliated with universities and research institutes around the globe, including in Egypt itself. It will serve as the locus of an academic community without a home, and provide scholars of Egypt with a natural home on H-Net. It also aims to bridge a gap between scholars in Egypt, mainly writing in Arabic, and those abroad. In addition to publishing the latest news and information in the field, the H-Egypt team manage, compile, and regularly post lists of available research and teaching resources; monitor leading academic journals and publishing houses for recent articles and books on Egypt; keep our subscribers up to date with ongoing and upcoming scholarly events such as conferences, book talks, workshops, call for papers, roundtables, lectures, etc.; and share any postings on H-Job that may be relevant to our subscribers.
Race and the Middle East/North Africa Mellon Sawyer Seminar
Funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
Building on earlier workshops and research sponsored by the Middle East and Middle East American center at the CUNY Graduate Center, the Mellon Sawyer seminar on Race and the Middle East/North Africa addresses a set of critical historical and contemporary questions about power and identity formation. Rather than presuming either the stability of notions of race or their irrelevance (as it has often been argued) for the MENA region, this seminar highlights the specific ways that hierarchies and inequalities have been understood, used, and reproduced in the Middle East and North Africa; among Middle Easterners and North Africans in Sub-Saharan Africa; in confrontations and conversations with Europeans; and among diaspora populations in the United States. In particular, the seminar addresses practices, policies, and beliefs about blood, biology, and marriage, appearance and regulation, exclusion and inclusion.
