Columbia University Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies

History

Graduate program

MESAAS languages

• Arabic
• Hebrew
• Hindi
• Urdu
• Persian
• Turkish
• Swahili
• Wolof
• Zulu
• Yoruba

Notable faculty

• Partha Chatterjee is a professor in MESAAS and Anthropology, specializing in political theory, history, postcolonial studies, and nationalism.
• Hamid Dabashi is the Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature specializing in history of Iran, Islamic Studies, Shi'ism, aesthetics and cultural and literary theory.
• Souleymane Bachir Diagne is a Professor of African Literature and Philosophy, affiliated with the Institute of African Studies and head of the School of International and Public Affairs' African Studies Program. His work is focused on the history of logic and mathematics, epistemology, the tradition of philosophy in the Islamic world, identity formation, and African literatures and philosophies.
• Mamadou Diouf is a professor of Western African history and director of the Institute of African Studies at School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University.
• Wael Hallaq is the Avalon Foundation Professor in the Humanities. He specializes in Islamic law and Islamic intellectual history.
• Sudipta Kaviraj specializes in intellectual history and South Asian politics.
• Rashid Khalidi is the Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University. He also serves as the director of the Middle East Institute of Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs.
• Mahmood Mamdani is the Herbert Lehman Professor of Government in MESAAS, International Affairs, and Anthropology. He specializes in the study of African history and politics.
• Joseph Massad is a professor of Modern Arab Politics and Intellectual History. He specializes in theories of identity and culture.
• Timothy Mitchell is the chair of MESAAS and a political theorist and historian. He specializes in colonialism and its place in the formation of modernity.
• Sheldon Pollock is the William B. Ransford Professor of Sanskrit and Indian Studies.
• George Saliba is a professor of Arabic and Islamic Science. He specializes in the development of scientific ideas from Late Antiquity till early modern times within the Islamic civilization context.