Princeton and Columbia

[wannabee]

This is a longshot, but.......is anyone out there familiar with the interdisciplinary doctoral program at these two schools? I am talking about Columbia's Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies Department and the Near Eastern Studies program at Princeton. I am primarily interested in modern Middle Eastern History and Politics. There are profs at both programs who would be good for this. I especially liked Columbia's program with its overall emphasis on the modern Middle East. The prof I studied with for undergrad went through Princeton.

[Gradstudent1985]

This is a longshot, but.......is anyone out there familiar with the interdisciplinary doctoral program at these two schools? I am talking about Columbia's Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies Department and the Near Eastern Studies program at Princeton. I am primarily interested in modern Middle Eastern History and Politics. There are profs at both programs who would be good for this. I especially liked Columbia's program with its overall emphasis on the modern Middle East. The prof I studied with for undergrad went through Princeton.

Rashid Khalidi and Timothy Mitchell are both quite good at Columbia. If Lisa Anderson comes back from her stint at AUC, she would be an excellent supervisor.

Princeton's Near Eastern Studies programme is not very strong for the modern political history of the Middle East. It used to be and in the past, Princeton has produced a number of excellent scholars who work on the modern period.

NYU has some good people. University of Michigan has a strong program. Yale's history department has added a new ME scholar recently to their faculty.

Edited October 1, 2010 by Gradstudent1985

[Alyanumbers]

I second NYU. I'm applying there (MEIS - Literature track, because I want to do comp lit with an emphasis on modern Egyptian literature). They also emphasize the modern era in the ME, like Columbia. I know Khaled Fahmy is currently here in Egypt, though.

Berkeley has Charles Hirschkind! You should definitely look that way.

This is a longshot, but.......is anyone out there familiar with the interdisciplinary doctoral program at these two schools? I am talking about Columbia's Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies Department and the Near Eastern Studies program at Princeton. I am primarily interested in modern Middle Eastern History and Politics. There are profs at both programs who would be good for this. I especially liked Columbia's program with its overall emphasis on the modern Middle East. The prof I studied with for undergrad went through Princeton.

[katemiddleton]

The program at UCLA for modernists is amazing-Gelvin for history/politics, Dr. El Fadl for theology/law. Also UCSB has a strong faculty in modern ME, but more history than politics. Berkeley probably has nothing for you; UChicago may be too Orientalist, if that bothers you. Columbia is amazing-they have Rashid Khalidi and Wael Hallaq!!! I'm applying for an MA there, but it will probably be WAY too expensive. Harvard CMES has Roger Owen, who is maybe one of my favorite living modernists. NYU they take something like 4 applicants per year, and this year may only be taking two-and that's into the MA program, so I assume that the PhD program is even tighter! And then, of course, you have Georgetown, which may be the dream school of every Middle Eastern modernist. I'm not sure how competitive the program is in terms of PhD admits, but I think the MA stats are something like 1/4 applicants get in.

Good luck!