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.