About the Department
Instruction in the Department of Near Eastern Studies is concerned with the languages, literatures, and civilizations of the ancient, medieval, and modern Near East. The Department offers specialized training in Archaeology, Art History, Assyriology, Egyptology, Iranian Studies, Judaic and Islamic Studies, Comparative Semitics, Turkish, Hebrew, Arabic and Persian. For students from other disciplines, the Department offers a wide variety of courses to supplement such related fields as classics, linguistics, history, political science, comparative literature, anthropology, and art history. The Department strongly recommends that its own graduate students take advantage of courses in these other fields, provided that they are relevant to their fields of study. Credit for such courses will be recognized by the Department, subject to approval of the Adviser.
Many of the Department's courses are restricted to a small number of students, thus affording an opportunity for close contact with the instructing staff. The Department offers a comprehensive body of information on past and present Near Eastern civilizations; instruction is given in both language/literature and lecture courses.
The Department is one of several participating in the Graduate Program in Ancient History and Mediterranean Archaeology. The Department also participates with the Graduate Theological Union in the Joint Doctoral Program in Near Eastern Religions and in the Joint Doctoral Program in Jewish Studies.
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Arabic Without Walls (AWW) is an on-line Arabic course developed for and open to non-Berkeley students and students at UC campuses where Arabic is not regularly taught. AWW is offered through the Berkeley Language Center (BLC), not the Near Eastern Studies Department. For information, please go to the BLC's web site: http://blc.berkeley.edu/index.html or call 510-642-0767, extension 13. UC Berkeley students must take Arabic through the regularly scheduled courses offered by the Near Eastern Studies Department.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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