Priorities in Middle East Studies

Extract

A number of events, including the Lambert Report on Language and Area Studies, legislation on National Defense Education, and various other bills on international education, provide an important opportunity for reevaluating priorities in the study of foreign regions. We believe that Middle East Studies, as a regional study needs support and that this support is threatened by a shifting attention to domestic needs and by impending reductions in funds for education. But we also believe that what is needed is more than a simple blanket appeal for funding. Clear priorities and new directions are required to give meaning to the call for support and to channel that support into important directions. This matter has been the subject of much discussion within the Middle East studies community and specifically within the Middle East Studies Association. The latest discussions took place at the meeting of Middle East center and program directors, at the Fifth Annual Meeting of MESA in November, 1971.