Ohio Wesleyan’s Middle Eastern Studies program brings together faculty with expertise in the culture, religions, languages, politics, history, literature, and art of the Middle East. This interdisciplinary approach, within a national liberal arts university, provides OWU students with a holistic understanding of the Middle East and creates an ideal environment for students to work closely with faculty mentors to deeply explore their own areas of interest. OWU is one of only a handful of national liberal arts colleges with an academic program dedicated to the study of the Middle East.
OWU's foundation in the liberal arts provides an ideal environment for Middle Eastern Studies, where students study religion, art, culture, literature, history, language, politics, economics, and philosophy. All students complete an intellectually rigorous research project, and have a variety of options for learning and research in the region.
An art historian and medievalist, Professor Neuman de Vegvar teaches Classical, Renaissance, Baroque, and Islamic art.
Professor Raizen was a 2011–2012 fellow at the Center for Arabic Study Abroad at the American University in Cairo.
Professor Gunasti's graduate study in religion and international relations is complemented by her undergraduate degree from Brown in applied mathematics and economics.
A poet and scholar, Professor Caplan is the Associate Director of Creative Writing at OWU.
Professor Sokolsky was a Peace Corps volunteer in Morocco, where she learned Moroccan Arabic and then continued studying Arabic at Harvard University.
After a long career in investment management, Professor Livingston returned to academia and received her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Harvard University in 2008.
Driss Sekkat, a 2006 OWU graduate, created and produced four seasons of "Street Pulse," an investigative documentary series, for Middle East Broadcasting Networks. His 2015 feature on the people who live in cemeteries in Cairo, Egypt, because they cannot afford housing won the Bronze Award at the New York Festival.
Julianne Zala '17 (front center in red and white) received OWU funding to attend the Arabic Summer Institute of Texas.