Awards and Achievements | Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at Illinois

UIUC Arabic Debate Team places 2nd nationally

10/16/2022 - Mabrook (Congratulations!) to Dr. Eman Saadah and the UIUC Arabic Debate team who competed in last week's Arabic Debate at Stanford University! Team member Suad Al Jawhari received first...

Professor Waïl Hassan named as CSAMES Director

12/02/2020 - Executive Director Jerry Davila has announced that Professor Waïl Hassan has been appointed Director of the Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies beginning January, 2021. Dr. Hassan is a...

UISFL program awarded a grant to CSAMES for the 2020-2022 academic years

11/15/2020 - Department of Education Undergraduate International Studies and Foreign Languages (UISFL) program awarded to the Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies (CSAMES) for the 2020-2022 academic...

Professor Avital Livny publishes Trust and the Islamic Advantage: Religious-Based Movements in Turkey and the Muslim World

08/15/2020 - In this book Professor Livny presents a new argument for conceptualizing religion as both a personal belief system and collective identity. For more information, go...

Professor Ghassan Moussawi published Disruptive Situations: Fractal Orientalism and Queer Strategies in Beirut. Temple University Press.

06/15/2020 - Professor Ghassan Moussawi's new book is the first comprehensive study to employ the lens of queer lives in the Arab World to understand everyday life disruptions, conflicts, and violence. From...

Dr. Ayse Ozcan makes advancements in Turkish language pedagogy

06/15/2020 - Director and Lecturer of the Turkish Language Program Dr. Ayse Ozcan has been integrating U of I into the Mellon Collaborative Partners Project, which is carried out by Consortium for Language...

Eric Calderwood received awards and recognitions for Colonial al-Andalus: Spain and the Making of Modern Moroccan Culture (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press 2018)

05/30/2020 - These awards include the 2019 L. Carl Brown AIMS Book Prize in North African Studies; Honorable Mention for the 2019 Nikki Keddie Book Award from the Middle East Studies Association; Silver Medal for...

Professor Ken Cuno receives Illinois Student Government Teaching Excellence Award

04/15/2020 - Kenneth Cuno, professor of the modern Middle East, received the Illinois Student Government Teaching Excellence Award. This award is given by students to recognize and thank excellent instructors at...

Dr. Williams' book on women's expression through hip hop

Dr. Angela Williams publishes book on women's expressions through hip hop in the Middle East and North Africa

04/15/2020 - CSAMES Associate Director Dr. Angela Williams has published the first book dedicated to female rap artists from the Middle East and North Africa and their representations of womanhood and girlhood. ...

Professor Wail Hassan selected as HRI 2020-2021: The Global and Its Worlds Faculty Fellow

03/09/2020 - Professor Wail Hassan was selected as a fellow to work on a book project, "Arab Brazil: Literature Culture and Orientalism." For more information, go...

Professor Mauro Nobili publishes Sultan, Caliph, and the Renewer of the Faith: Ahmad Lobbo, the Tārīkh al-fattāsh and the Making of an Islamic State in West Africa

02/15/2020 - The Tārīkh al-fattāsh is one of the most important and celebrated sources for the history of pre-colonial West Africa, yet it has confounded scholars for decades with its inconsistencies and...

Professor Hadi Esfahani wins Gottheil Award

05/01/2019 - The Fred M. Gottheil Faculty Award was presented in May 2019 by the Department of Economics at UIUC to Hadi Esfahani, Professor of Economics and Director of the Center for South Asian and Middle...