Recent News
The Department of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures (MELC) at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington invites applications for an Assistant Teaching Professor to a 3-year, non-tenure track appointment in Persian language and culture to begin in September 2025. This is a full-time, 9-month position, renewable pending a review during its third year.
University of Washington faculty engage in teaching, scholarship, and service. Our faculty, staff, and students are intellectually… Read more
Katie Ruesink is an undergraduate in the UW College of Arts & Sciences, majoring in Korean language and history and Middle Eastern languages and cultures. She spent the past academic year in Korea, taking courses at Seoul National University. In her own words, she shares how she made a special connection with a Korean family during her year abroad.
See the complete story here.
Our student and recent graduate, Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, was killed on Friday, September 6th, reportedly by the Israel Defense Forces near the Palestinian village of Beita. Ayşenur was participating in a demonstration against illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, organized weekly by the International Solidarity Movement. She was found shot and bleeding under an olive tree and succumbed to her injuries soon after.
All of Ayşenur's teachers, mentors, friends, and community are devastated by… Read more
Edmonds resident Gary Martin was one of 1,006 alphorn players who gathered in central Switzerland Saturday, Aug. 31 to set the new official Guinness World Record for the largest alphorn ensemble.
According to Martin, the previous official record was 366 in 2009. An unofficial record of 508 alphorn players was set in 2013. “Both of those were also in Switzerland, of course,” Martin said. “It was a fabulous experience!”
Martin, a University of Washington professor emeritus, spoke about the… Read more
Aria Fani’s Reading across Borders: Afghans, Iranians, and Literary Nationalism, which was published in March 2024 by the University of Texas Press, has been translated into Persian and will be made available to Iranian readers in late September. The translation was done by Ali Ghasemi Monfared and it will be published by… Read more
Two years ago on August 6, Iraj Khademi, a beloved pillar of the Seattle Iranian community, passed away in Bellevue, Washington. Affectionately called Amoo Iraj by many, Dr. Khademi was a longtime supporter of our department and was instrumental in strengthening the connection between the community and UW’s Persian and Iranian Studies Program.
Since then, the Iranian community has come together to commemorate his legacy. Thanks to an ongoing… Read more
The Mo Habib Translation Prize in Persian Literature at the Department of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures has forged an exciting partnership with the American Literary Translators Associations (ALTA) to fund a year-long fellowship for literary translators who translate from Persian into English. ALTA is a non-profit, membership-based association for literary translators in North America… Read more
The Department of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures reports with great enthusiasm that Hajar Hussaini has won the second cycle of the Mo Habib Translation Prize in Persian Literature for her translations of Maral Taheri’s verse. Hussaini and Taheri will be awarded $10,000 and $5,000 respectively while the selection of Taheri’s work will be published by Deep Vellum… Read more
MELC is excited to share that Shabnam Entezar’s proposal for a Persian Business Language Curriculum has won a grant from the Global Business Center, the Jackson School’s Title VI Centers, and the U.S. Department of Education. This innovative curriculum is designed to equip learners and professionals with essential language skills and cultural understanding for success in various business environments. Some modules will be ready for integration into MELC’s intermediate level Persian courses… Read more
-A report by Sergen Avci
Dr. Didem Havlioğlu, a literary historian and Associate Professor at Duke University who works on women and gender in the Islamicate world, gave a fascinating talk titled “Performance, Subversion, and Gender-Bending in Ottoman Poetry” on April 18th, 2024. With this talk, Dr. Havlioğlu contributed to the Walter G. Andrews Memorial Lecture Series hosted by the Turkish and Ottoman Studies Program in the Department of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures. Her… Read more