| Middle Eastern Studies |
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| CATEGORIES ABOUT MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES | |
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Although some academic programs combine Middle Eastern Studies with Islamic Studies , based on the preponderance of Muslim s in the region, others maintain these areas of study as separate disciplines. The Middle East is the site of the Fertile Crescent , where civilization is thought to have began. This area is also referred to as Mesopotamia . It is characterized as having an Arab ic ethnic composition and primarily Islamic religious composition. There are however, quite a few Persians , Kurd s, Turk s, and other ethnic groups. Furthermore, Western Christian s, Jews , Orthodox Christians , Buddhists , and members of other religious groups can be found to varying degrees throughout the region. CONTENTIOUS ISSUES In 1978 Edward Said , a Palestinian American professor of Comparative Literature at Columbia University , published his book '' Orientalism '', in which he accused earlier scholars of a "subtle and persistent Eurocentric prejudice against Arab o-Islamic peoples and their culture", claiming the bias amounted to a justification for Imperialism . While other academics challenged Said's conclusions, the book soon became a standard text of Literary Theory and Cultural Studies . American-Israeli historian . In a '' Wall Street Journal '' article published in 2001, Kramer claimed that Middle Eastern studies courses, as they stood, were "part of the problem, not its remedy". In a '' Foreign Affairs '' review of the book, F. Gregory Gause said his analysis was, in part, "serious and substantive" but "far too often his valid points are overshadowed by academic score-settling and major inconsistencies." In 2002 , American Neo-conservative writer Daniel Pipes established an organisation called Campus Watch to combat what he perceived to be serious problems within the discipline, including "analytical failures, the mixing of politics with scholarship, intolerance of alternative views, apologetics, and the abuse of power over students". He encouraged students to advise the organisation of problems at their campuses. In turn critics within the discipline such as John Esposito accused him of " McCarthyism ". EXTERNAL LINKS
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