2026-2027 Catalog

Southwest Asia & North African Studies

Overview

The SWANA minor provides a comprehensive understanding of the region, which encompasses Southwest Asia and North Africa, and its history, politics, culture, and languages while enabling students to tailor their studies to their personal interests. The minor provides students with an academically rigorous and broad understanding of the region's history, political economy, cultures, and languages, with a focus on both the diversity in the region and its global significance. The minor offers a balance of interdisciplinary coursework and flexibility to accommodate a range of academic interests. There will be opportunities for experiential learning and engagement as students encounter nuanced perspectives in Southwest Asia and North Africa and its cultures and peoples. Students will be able to take classes with faculty from various departments, including Art & Art History, CTSJ, DWA, History, and Religious Studies.

Students will:

  • Demonstrate interdisciplinary knowledge of the histories, cultures, religions, literatures, and political formations of Southwest Asia and North Africa, including their diasporic communities.
  • Cultivate expertise in a thematic or disciplinary field—such as Islamic studies, modern Arabic literature, gender and sexuality, migration studies, or regional history—while engaging SWANA texts, communities, and contexts in depth.
  • Understand how global institutions or systemic structures have worked to reinforce hierarchies and inequalities related to the SWANA region and its diasporic communities.
  • Critically examine the role of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and class have shaped lived experiences in the SWANA region and its diasporic communities.

Requirements

Students will choose one required course from the list below. The required course provides students with introductory and fundamental SWANA content. Each of the courses on the Required Course List aligns with all four learning outcomes, ensuring that these learning outcomes are met.

Students will then choose four additional courses from the list of electives. At least two of these electives must be at the 200-level or above. Students must complete courses in at least three departments. Students may only count two Arabic language courses towards the minor. These requirements ensure interdisciplinary breadth and depth across learning outcomes.

A maximum of four transfer credits may be used for the minor. Junior transfer students may petition to have additional course credit counted.

Minor

 

Required Course

Choose one required course from the list below.
ARAB 101Elementary Arabic I

5 units

ARAB 102Elementary Arabic II

5 units

ARAB 201Intermediate Arabic I

4 units

ARAB 202Intermediate Arabic II

4 units

CTSJ 104The New Queer Politics of the Middle East

4 units

HIST 121Rethinking “the West”: A Critical History of Europe, Southwest Asia, and North Africa from Antiquity to 1700

4 units

HIST 182The Modern Middle East

4 units

HIST 225Crusades and Convivencia: Understanding the Medieval Mediterranean

4 units

RELS 150Islam on the Move

4 units

RELS 222/HIST 222Islam and Capitalism

4 units

RELS 255What is the Shari’a? Justice, Law, and Ethics in Islam

4 units

Electives (choose four additional courses)

Choose four additional courses from the list of electives. At least two of these electives must be at the 200-level or above. Students must complete courses in at least three departments. Students may only count two Arabic language courses towards the minor.
ARAB 101Elementary Arabic I

5 units

ARAB 102Elementary Arabic II

5 units

ARAB 201Intermediate Arabic I

4 units

ARAB 202Intermediate Arabic II

4 units

ARTH 170Introduction to the Arts of the Early Mediterranean World

4 units

CTSJ 104The New Queer Politics of the Middle East

4 units

CTSJ 115Technologies of Resistance in the Middle East and North Africa

4 units

CTSJ 202The Promise and Failure of Postmodern Politics: Foucault in the Iranian Revolution

4 units

CTSJ 204/CSLC 214Torture, Sex, and Metaphysics: Dehumanization Before Abu Ghraib and After

4 units

CTSJ 350Melancholy and Ressentiment in the Postcolonial: What Comes After Postcolonialism?

4 units

DWA 219Democracy and Development in South Asia

4 units

DWA 238Identity and Citizenship: The South Asian Diaspora

4 units

DWA 360Who Develops? Research and Policy Making in International Development

4 units

ECON 311International Economics

4 units

ECON 320Economic Development

4 units

ECON 323Urban Economics

4 units

HIST 121Rethinking “the West”: A Critical History of Europe, Southwest Asia, and North Africa from Antiquity to 1700

4 units

HIST 182The Modern Middle East

4 units

HIST 194Imperialism

4 units

HIST 200/DWA 200A History of the Palestine-Israel Question

4 units

HIST 211Pandora's Box: 9/11, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the United States

4 units

HIST 212Diversity Before Multiculturalism: The Ottoman World, 1300-1699

4 units

HIST 225Crusades and Convivencia: Understanding the Medieval Mediterranean

4 units

HIST 282The Muslim World in Modern Times

4 units

HIST 283Peasant, Tribe, and Nation in the Middle East

4 units

HIST 305The Islamic Golden Age

4 units

HIST 385Identity Formation in the Middle East: Sectarianism, Identity and Civil War in Lebanon 1975-1990

4 units

RELS 130Jews, Judaisms, and Jewish Identities

4 units

RELS 150Islam on the Move

4 units

RELS 205Holy Sh*t!: Engaging the Materiality of Religion

4 units

RELS 208Black Power and Jews, Black Power and Palestine

4 units

RELS 212Jerusalem: A Holy City

4 units

RELS 235Gendering Jews in Southwest Asia and North Africa

4 units

RELS 246Muslim Abolitionist Futures

4 units

RELS 222/HIST 222Islam and Capitalism

4 units

RELS 255What is the Shari’a? Justice, Law, and Ethics in Islam

4 units

Transfer Credit Policies

A maximum of four transfer credits may be used for the minor. Junior transfer students may petition to have additional course credit counted.

Faculty

Advisory Committee:

Alaa Abdelfattah
Assistant Professor, Economics
B.A. Middlebury College; Ph.D. University of California, Davis

Anthony Tirado Chase

Professor, Diplomacy and World Affairs

B.A., University of California, Santa Cruz; M.A.L.S., Columbia University; M.A.L.D., Ph.D., Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy  

 

Margaret Gaida
Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, History
B.A. Duke University; M.A. University of California, San Diego; M.A., Ph.D. University of Oklahoma

Michael Gasper

Associate Professor, History

B.A., Temple University; M.A., Ph.D., New York University

Syeda ShahBano Ijaz

Assistant Professor, Diplomacy and World Affairs
B.S., Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS); M.S., University of Oxford; M.A., New York University; Ph.D., University of California at San Diego

Sohaib Khan

Assistant Professor, Religious Studies 
B.S., Lahore University; M.A., Duke University; Ph.D., Columbia University

Lina Kholaki

Comparative Studies in Literature and Culture

 

Chelsie May
Visiting Assistant Professor, Religious Studies
B.A., University of California, Los Angeles; M.A., Brandeis; Ph.D., University of Chicago

 

Malek Moazzam-Doulat
Resident Associate Professor, Critical Theory and Social Justice
A.B., Occidental College; Ph.D., State University of New York, Stony Brook

Ben Ratskoff

Assistant Professor, Critical Theory and Social Justice
B.A. Northwestern University; M.A., Ph.D. University of California, Los Angeles

Movindri Reddy

Professor, Diplomacy and World Affairs 

B.A., University of Natal; M.A., Ph.D., Cambridge University

 

 

Affiliate Members:

Alexander F. Day

Professor, Asian Studies & History

B.A., Colby College; M.A., Ph.D., University of California, Santa Cruz

Amy Holmes-Tagchungdarpa

Professor, Asian Studies & Religious Studies 

B.A., Victoria University of Wellington; Ph.D., Australian National University 

 

Damian Stocking
Professor, Comparative Studies in Literature and Culture
B.A., University of California, Berkeley; M.A., Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles

Katarzyna Marciniak

Professor, Media Arts and Culture

M.A., University of Lodz; M.A., University of Montana; Ph.D., University of Oregon