Understanding perceptions

Advancing awareness

The Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies (CSAMES) was founded to sponsor, highlight, and encourage events that further our academic community's awareness of and knowledge about the societies of South Asia and the Middle East. CSAMES is engaged in activities to foster knowledge and debate on those areas on campus as well as among community institutions such as schools, libraries, and service organizations.

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CSAMES News

Antoinette Burton book Biocultural Empire
Antoinette Burton's new volume sheds light on the biocultural empire
Historian Antoinette Burton recently published a thought-provoking new edited collection titled Biocultural Empire: New Histories of Imperial Lifeworlds, co-edited alongside Renisa Mawani and Samantha Frost. This groundbreaking volume challenges traditional histories of empire by questioning human...
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Dr. Waïl S. Hassan elected as vice president of the Modern Language Association
We are delighted to congratulate CSAMES affiliate and former CSAMES Director Waïl S. Hassan on his recent...
Tea Plantation in Sri Lanka
2024-25 Focus of ACES Global Academy is Sri Lanka
The Global Academy, a unique international training program based in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES) has kicked off its sixteenth year. With the goal of increasing the international impact of the participants’ professional work, the selected faculty and...
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CSAMES Welcomes First Faculty Director for South Asian Studies
The Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies is excited to announce a new role within the center: the Faculty Director for South Asian Studies. Starting on August 16, 2024, the Center’s first Faculty Director for South Asian Studies will be Professor Rini Mehta (Comparative & World...
Antoinette Burton
Antoinette Burton's new book provides introduction to gender history
Antoinette Burton, who is the director of the Humanities Research Institute at Illinois, wrote a new book, “Gender History: A Very...
Susan Koshy
Susan Koshy Receives OVCRI Faculty Fellowship
Congratulations to Susan Koshy for her recent receipt of a faculty fellowship with the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation. From OVCRI: "Faculty Fellows inform OVCRI thinking and policy-making while simultaneously learning about campus-level research administration and...
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Alumni Spotlight: Rashelle Roos

After completing her MFA in Sculpture/Painting at UIUC in 2007, Rashelle wanted to continue her studies with a focus on Middle Eastern cultures. She is interested in both traditional and contemporary artwork from the region. Rashelle enjoyed participating in an Artists' Residency in Kapadokya, Turkey, and teaching art classes in Istanbul, Turkey, in 2007. She finds artwork to be a great tool for initiating cross-cultural exchange. Rashelle worked as a graduate assistant for CSAMES in summer 2008. Rashelle completed her MA in Asian Studies with a Middle Eastern concentration in December 2008....

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Recent Lecture: Identity Projection in a Digital and Global World: Moroccan Pop Music as a Case Study

Identity has been studied in light of many theoretical frameworks such as “Accommodation Theory” (Coupland 1984; Giles and Coupland 1991), “Audience Design” (Bell 1984), “Acts of Identity” (Le Page and Tabouret-Keller 1985), and “Language and Identity” Bucholtz and Hall (2004, 2005) among other theories. Building on two theoretical models, “Acts of Identity” and “Language Identity”, this research examines identity projection based on data collected from 30 Moroccan Pop songs. While Le Page and Tabouret-Keller (1985) consider the colonial past a driving force leading to linguistic...