Global Studies @ UTL

The Middle Eastern Studies Collection supports research, teaching, and learning at all levels, and in particular for the programs of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies and the Department of Middle Eastern Studies. However, it also endeavors to support interdisciplinary undertakings making use of Middle Eastern content across the University and in the wider community. The Middle Eastern Studies collection of the University of Texas at Austin comprises over 128,000 items in a wide range of disciplines, including history, anthropology, and linguistics. The collection prioritizes Arabic, Persian, and Turkish, but it also has holdings in Ottoman Turkish, Azerbaijani, Kurdish, and other languages of the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia. The collection’s geographic focus prioritizes Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Turkey. Materials are also collected from and about North Africa, Sudan, and Afghanistan. A substantial portion of our resources has been acquired through gifts and direct purchasing.

The objective of the Middle Eastern Studies collection is to stimulate scholarly production through one-on-one consultations and research instruction for classes, and well as by enhancing UT research networks throughout the Middle East and North Africa through foreign acquisitions travel.

Our Middle Eastern Language Collection – for language instruction and research – is the largest in Texas and a leader in the Western region. The strongest languages in this collection are Arabic, Persian, and Turkish. Our Persian collection stands out as one of the strongest collections in the nation. Among our distinctive collections are the Pahlavi-era cinema periodicals, Iranian newspapers, and the Yemeni Manuscripts Digitization Initiative.

For more information about researching on the Middle Eastern collections at UT go to Middle Eastern Studies Research Guide.