Research areas
If you are interested in pursuing an MPhil/PhD in Middle East Politics, we can provide supervision and expertise in the following subject areas:
- Arabic historiography
- Arabic language, linguistics and literature
- Gulf studies
- diaspora and migration studies
- Middle East politics, economics, society, history and culture
- modern Islamist movements
- Islamic studies, culture, philosophy and law
- Islamic Material culture
- Islamic Maritime culture
- Palestine studies
- Kurdish studies
- Iranian studies
- North African politics
- social anthropology of the Middle East
- ethno-political studies: see MPhil/PhD in Ethno-Political Studies
MPhil/PhD students work alongside researchers within the following research centres.
Centre for Gulf Studies
Staff within the Centre for Gulf Studies offer expertise encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, Iraq and Iran. Research specialisms include anthropology, Arabic, development studies, economics, history, international relations, Islamic studies, literature, material culture, Persian, political economy, political science and sociolinguistics.
The Exeter Centre for Ethno-Political Studies
This university supported centre is ‘global’ in its vision, and not constrained to one particular part of the world. The centre seeks to encourage the development of theoretical fields of study, alongside an empirical focus on different parts of the world. In addition to having world-class academics focusing on modern ethno-political conflict (in Palestine, Iraq, Ireland and FRY, for example), the centre promotes and conducts research into the history and contemporary prominence of communal tensions in Western societies, and how government policies affect institutions of civil society that have the potential to bridge the split caused by ethnic and communal differences. Of particular interest are those ethno-political situations that have now been resolved as they may provide valuable lessons when considering contemporary disputes.
Centre for Persian and Iranian Studies
This centre was set up to coordinate and enhance the activities of Exeter scholars in the broad range of Persian and Iranian studies (whether history, literature, philosophy, religious studies, politics, classics or in other fields).
Centre for Kurdish Studies
This unique centre promotes academic investigations in Kurdish Studies in an interdisciplinary manner and will commission a new peer-reviewed academic journal. Currently, members associated with the Centre cover subjects including politics and international relations, gender studies, geography, sociology, language and literature, Islamic studies and history. Thanks to generous grants from the Prime Minister’s office of the Kurdistan Regional Government, the President of Iraq and Ibrahim Ahmed Foundation, Exeter is the only British university to teach both Sorani and Kurmanji Kurdish.
Centre for Palestine Studies
The Centre for Palestine Studies (CPS) is the first centre of its kind in Europe. Housed within the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, the CPS will make a major contribution to current research into Palestine Studies through a series of research activities and events.
The Centre for the Study of Islam
The Centre for the Study of Islam (CSI) brings together research activity in Islamic thought, culture and law within the Institute; there is a fortnightly reading group for all CSI students and staff, seminars and workshops throughout the year linked to CSI projects. Currently the main projects of the CSI are Legitimate and Illegitimate Violence in Islamic Thought (LIVIT project), and Clerical Authority in Shiite Islam
