By Sara Patterson

With deepening conflicts in the region, human rights are central to the study of the modern Middle East. As a result, the UChicago Center for Middle Eastern Studies (CMES) has added a new track for the study of human rights to its two-year master’s program in partnership with the Pozen Family Center for Human Rights, starting in 2024‒2025.

“At this moment in the political landscape, no one can discuss the Middle East without talking about human rights,” said Kathleen Cavanaugh, executive director of the Pozen Family Center for Human Rights and senior instructional professor in the College at UChicago.

The new CMES human rights track combines training in the history, politics, languages, and cultures of the Middle East with theoretical and practical training in human rights work. Its partnership with the Pozen Center for Human Rights advances the students’ understanding of human rights theory, law, and fieldwork methods. With help from UChicagoGRAD, students will also have the option of pursuing internships to engage directly with the practice of human rights worldwide.

The Pozen Center’s anti-colonial approach to the study and teaching of human rights is particularly relevant for this new CMES track. So much of the critique around human rights in the Middle East region and beyond is its approach to seeing the “west” and the “rest.” “The Pozen Center teaching aims to break that cycle and explore readings and approaches that are truly global,” according to Cavanaugh.

“Since the beginning, CMES has had a strong focus on interdisciplinary scholarship in training master’s degree students in the history, culture, politics, and languages of the Middle East,” said Alireza Doostdar, director of CMES, associate professor of Islamic Studies and the Anthropology of Religion in the Divinity School and the College at UChicago. “We realized CMES could benefit from newer developments such as training in human rights in partnership with already honed expertise of our colleagues at the Pozen Center for Human Rights.”

While human rights in the Middle East region face constant and acute threats, the region is not exceptional. Students in the human rights track will have the opportunity to develop theoretical and practical toolkits for understanding the Middle East in relation to conflicts and challenges elsewhere, including the United States.

“The new human rights track is both an important and exciting development for the master’s degree program in CMES,” said Ghenwa Hayek, associate professor in the Department of Middle Eastern Studies and Deputy Dean in the Division of the Humanities at UChicago. “Students will gain valuable knowledge and experience that can be applied to diplomacy, further academic research, the study of law, or work in global human rights organizations.”

Since 1965, students in the CMES program have studied the region extending from Morocco to Kazakhstan. The Division of the Humanities supports this master’s degree program to help students acquire rigorous knowledge in this interdisciplinary academic field and gain specialized understanding of the diverse languages, complex civilizations, and issues of human rights in the Middle East.