This research project, led by Nadje Al-Ali, Robert Family Professor of International Studies, and also professor of anthropology and Middle East studies, is based on the recognition that a gendered intersectional lens is central, not marginal, to a deeper analysis and understanding of political mobilizations, social developments and cultural expressions in the Middle East. A gendered lens also allows for a comparative perspective and collaboration with other regional centers and initiatives at Brown University. The project involves panel discussions, lectures and book talks, as well as relevant research.

Brown University’s Center for Middle East Studies (CMES) and Columbia University’s Middle East Institute (MEI) are collaborating on a series titled Gender and Body Politics: Arts in the Middle East and its Diasporas. In conversation with artists from the Middle East and North Africa as well as its diasporas, the series examines intersecting inequalities and body politics expressed, represented and transgressed in both visual and performance art. Against the backdrop of war and conflict, the rise of authoritarian regimes, displacement and diaspora mobilization, Islamophobia, ongoing orientalist depictions, and challenges linked to the COVID-19 pandemic, this series explores the ways in which artists are informed by and/or contribute to anti-racist, transnational feminist, and queer praxis. 

The New Directions in Palestinian Studies research initiative of Brown University’s Center for Middle East Studies, launched in 2012 by Beshara Doumani, Mahmoud Darwish Chair in Palestinian Studies, aims to shape scholarly works in this field through an annual workshop, an endowed post-doctoral fellowship, and a book series. In 2022-23, Abdel Razzaq Takriti assumed the role in a visiting capacity. He oversaw the initiative's workshop, Darwish Chair programming, as well as taught two courses.

The Center for Middle East Studies at Brown University is the gravitational center of a tight-knit community of scholars—students and faculty—who bring their different interests and perspectives to the classroom and beyond it, in the shared endeavor of better understanding the Middle East.