Middle Eastern and North African Studies MENAS Minor

The Middle Eastern and North African Studies (MENAS) minor, administered by the Humanities Division in partnership with the Center for the Middle East and North Africa (CMENA), supports the development of a robust knowledge of the Middle East and North Africa through a program that consists of a diverse set of courses across departments and divisions as well as the study of at least one regional language. Courses span the Humanities, Social Sciences, and Arts Divisions and draw on the varied and deep expertise of faculty in multiple academic departments that include the Departments of History, Politics, Anthropology, Critical Race and Ethnic Studies, Feminist Studies, Literature, Languages and Applied Linguistics, the History of Art and Visual Culture, and Film and Digital Media. The objective of the MENAS minor is to promote substantive regional knowledge, understanding, and curiosity among students who are interested in positioning themselves as global citizens.

To complete the minor, students must take three quarters of language instruction in Arabic, Hebrew, or Persian, or complete the highest-level course of their chosen language (ARBC 6, HEBR 4, PERS 4). They also will take one specified lower-division introductory course, and five upper-division courses whose primary focus is the history, politics, artistic production, and/or cultures of the Middle East and/or North Africa.

The minor consists of completing the language requirement and six additional courses from at least two different departments. Students can take up to two MENAS minor requirements pass/no pass. The remainder of the classes must be taken for a letter grade.

Course Requirements

At least three quarters of language instruction

At least three quarters of language instruction from a single language or complete the highest level of your chosen language (ARBC 6, HEBR 4, PERS 4).

Three from the following:

Take three from the following OR complete the highest-level course, ARBC 6.

ARBC 1	First-Year Arabic	5
ARBC 2	First-Year Arabic	5
ARBC 3	First-Year Arabic	5
ARBC 4	Second-Year Arabic	5
ARBC 5	Second-Year Arabic	5
ARBC 6	Second-Year Arabic	5

Or three from the following:

Take three from the following OR complete the highest-level course, HEBR 4.

HEBR 1	First-Year Hebrew	5
HEBR 2	First-Year Hebrew	5
HEBR 3	First-Year Hebrew	5
HEBR 4	Second-Year Hebrew	5

Or three of the following:

Take three from the following OR complete the highest-level course, PERS 4.

PERS 1	First-Year Persian	5
PERS 2	First-Year Persian	5
PERS 3	First-Year Persian	5
PERS 4	Persian 4	5

Lower-Division Courses

Plus at least one lower-division survey course from the following list:

HIS 41	The Making of the Modern Middle East	5
HIS 50	When Pharaohs Reigned: The History of Ancient Egypt	5
HIS 51	Pyramids of Earth: Religion and Symbol in the Ancient World	5
HIS 58	From Pirates to Refugees: The History of the Modern Mediterranean	5
HIS 74A	Introduction to Middle Eastern and North African Jewish History: Ancient to Early Modern	5
HIS 74B	Introduction to Middle Eastern and North African Jewish History, 1500-2000	5
LIT 81D	The Prophet and the Qur’an	5

Upper-Division Courses

Plus at least five upper-division courses from the following list. Between the upper- and lower-division elective options, courses must be taken from at least two different departments.

The primary focus is the history, politics, artistic production, and/or cultures of the Middle East and/or North Africa.

ANTH 130T	Religion and Politics in the Muslim World	5
FILM 168	National Cinema and Culture	5
HAVC 153	Neither Venus Nor Virgin: Women's Lives Beyond Men's Constructs in Late Antiquity and Byzantium	5
HAVC 154	Byzantine Visual Culture: Politics and Religion in the Empire of Constantinople, 330-1453 A. C	5
HAVC 155	Constructing Cleopatra: Power, Sexuality, and Femininity Across the Ages	5
HAVC 190C	The Mediterranean from the Rise of Christianity to the Rise of Islam	5
HAVC 190N	Topics in Mediterranean Visual Culture	5
HIS 154	Post-Colonial North Africa	5
HIS 156A	Art, Culture, and Mass Media in the Arab Middle East	5
HIS 156B	Modern Arab Thought	5
HIS 156C	Living Egyptian History in the City of Cairo	5
HIS 157	The Ottoman Empire	5
HIS 159A	Cleopatra to Constantine: Greek and Roman Egypt	5
HIS 159B	Women and Gender in Ancient Egypt	5
HIS 159C	Temple and City: The Egyptian New Kingdom and the City of Thebes	5
HIS 159D	When Cities Were New: the Rise of Urbanism in the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean	5
HIS 170C	Mediterranean France: The History and Politics of Immigration	5
HIS 185C	Communism, Nationalism, and Zionism: Comparative Radical Jewish Politics	5
HIS 185M	Zionism: An Intellectual History	5
HIS 185O	The Holocaust and the Arab World	5
HIS 194L	Exile, Diaspora, and Displacement: Jewish Lives from North Africa to the Middle East	5
HIS 194S	Special Topics in Ancient Egyptian History	5
HIS 194V	Fascism and Anti-Fascism: The Global Spanish Civil War	5
HIS 194W	Social Movements in the Modern Middle East	5
LIT 117A	Old Iranian Literature	5
LIT 125H	Modern Arabic Novel	5
LIT 130A	Ancient Literature in Cross-Cultural Perspective	5
LIT 130B	Travel Writing and Intercultural Relations in the Middle Ages	5
LIT 130D	The Global Middle Ages	5
LIT 141A	Early Mediterranean Cultures	5
LIT 141D	Classical Arabic Literature and Islamic Civilization	5
LIT 141E	Post-Classical Arabic Literature and Culture	5
LIT 141G	Granada: The Moor's Last Sigh and the Muslim's Frontier: The City in the Mediterranean Imagination	6
LIT 159M /HIS 159M	The Curse of the Mummy	5
LIT 168A	The Culture of Islamic Law	5
LIT 168B	Islamic Law and Society	5
POLI 140E	Middle East Politics	5
POLI 184 /LGST 184	Shariah and Political Thinking: Law and Politics in Modern Islamic Thought	5
POLI 187	Decolonial Global Health: A View from the Middle East and Africa	5

Course Substitution Policy

Transfer Credits and Course Substitutions

Courses from the following categories may also be applied to the MENAS minor:

Transfer Courses/Courses taken at another institution (three courses)
Education Abroad Program (no limit)
Course Substitutions/Related courses not currently on the pre-approved MENAS course list (no limit)
Independent and Field Studies (two courses)

Transfer Coursework

Students may petition up to three courses taken at another college or university for use toward their MENAS minor requirements. Courses must appear on your UC Santa Cruz Transfer Credit Summary Report before they will be approved for use toward your MENAS minor requirements.