Middle East Studies Program

Writing and Filming Queer North African Stories

December 2, 2026 @ 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm

Through his writing and filmmaking, Taïa challenges dominant representations of gender, sexuality, migration, and North African experience while opening space for other ways of imagining identity, intimacy, and belonging.

To Exist as a Problem: Being Black, Being Palestinian

February 22, 2027 @ 12:00 pm – 1:15 pm

Drawing on W. E. B. Du Bois’s question, “How does it feel to be a problem?”, Professor Zahi Zalloua (Whitman College) examines the shared experiences of Black and Palestinian people as groups racialized as threats. He argues that anti-Blackness and anti-Palestinian racism are foundational to systems of white and settler dominance, casting Black people as criminals and Palestinians as terrorists to justify oppression.

Children’s International Story Hour: “These Olive Trees”

March 15, 2027 @ 4:00 pm – 5:00 pm

We are excited to present the children’s book:  These Olive Trees by Aya Ghanameh (Author, Illustrator). We will be reading the book to children, introducing basic Arabic words, teaching basic facts about Palestine, and creating an art project based on the book! This is part of a series that introduces children’s literature that celebrates the diversity of art, culture, food, …

The Revolution Within: Islamic Media and the Struggle for a New Egypt

March 29, 2027 @ 12:00 pm – 1:15 pm

Yasmin Moll is an assistant professor of anthropology at University of Michigan. She is an anthropologist of religion and media with a focus on the Middle East as well as a practicing visual ethnographer.

Sharing Jerusalem: Urban Mixing and Its Limits in a Late Ottoman City

April 14, 2027 @ 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm

Michelle Campos is a scholar of 19th- and early 20th-century Jewish Studies and Middle Eastern history whose work focuses on three overlapping fields: the history of Palestine and Israel; the late Ottoman Empire and the making of the modern Middle East; and Sephardic Jewish studies.