“ME/SA at UC Davis has been enormously helpful in creating connections between professors and students in multiple disciplines, allowing me to work with people in fields such as anthropology and religious studies as easily as with other historians. In addition, the scholars who ME/SA has brought in for speaking and discussion engagements has fostered yet more healthy research and theoretical connections and brought added depth to everyone’s work. ” – Stephen Cox

“I selected UC Davis’ Department of History specifically because of the depth and breadth of the faculty doing work on the Middle East and South Asia in the department, and their cutting edge approach to history and historical analysis. Davis has many faculty doing research on either the Middle East or South Asia, and while their individual work differs, they understand that the study of history is necessarily political, and they encourage projects that highlight the relationship between the contemporary and the past and that seriously engage with political and social theory.  The faculty here eschew traditional area studies analyses and the historical divisions between Arab Studies, Iranian Studies, and South Asian Studies.  They support projects involving regional and comparative analysis of empire, colonialism, and social movements, and encourage their students to take new and cutting edge approaches to the study of history.” – Nina Farnia