Middle East Critique is a peer reviewedMiddle Eastern studies journal published by Taylor & Francis for the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Lund University. The mission of Middle East Critique is to publish critical analyses of the history and contemporary political, social, economic, and cultural aspects of Middle Eastern countries. Articles in the journal thus actively engage theoretical and empirical studies and by so doing promote a critical understanding of the complex nature of ideas, values, political and social configurations, and the material realities in Middle Eastern societies. These articles also provide a unique forum for the inter-disciplinary examination of diverse issues based on solid research and critical readings of developments in the Middle East. A group of academics, each of whom was teaching at one of the five liberal arts colleges in St. Paul, Minnesota, initially conceivedthe idea of a new journal dedicated to publishing scholarly articles that engaged with the ideas of post-colonial critical theories and applied them empirically to research about the Middle East. An editorial collective brought out the first issue of Critique: Critical Middle Eastern Studies in the fall of 1992. For the following 18 years, the journal's academic home remained Hamline University, while the name of the journal changed to Middle East Critique in 2009. Important milestones during this period included the agreement of eminent Iran scholar, Eric Hooglund, to serve as the journal's full-time Editor in January 1995, and the decision of Taylor and Francis, one of the world's largest publishers of scholarly journals, to publish Middle East Critique beginning with the spring 2002 issue. The journal has acquired a reputation for introducing articles with significant theoretical analyses and fresh field research by both established and new scholars, articles that reach and engage with an international audience of readers who study the Middle East from multiple disciplinary perspectives. Middle East Critique has been classified as a "A*" journal by the Australian Research Council for its Excellence in Research for Australia initiative, placing it in the top 5% of journals in the "Humanities and Creative Arts" cluster.
