The Mediterranean Studies program provides Pitt students the support and organizational structure they need to examine issues and themes across the Mediterranean world over a broad chronological span, from Antiquity to the present, and to explore the interconnectedness of North Africa, the Levant, Anatolia, Southern Europe, and the Balkans. Consequently, the certificate is offered by the European Studies Center in collaboration with the Center for African Studies, the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, and the Global Studies Center. Through coursework and language study, this interdisciplinary certificate program allows students to contextualize the ideas, history and politics of Mediterranean cultures past and present and examine their influence both in and outside of the region.
Students may self-design the certificate according to their interests. Studies of the Mediterranean region invite comparative studies in Religious Studies, History, Political Science, Economics, and Philosophy, among many other departments. Students can study the origins of three of the world’s major religions - Judaism, Christianity, and Islam - and trace their subsequent spread and related diasporas of peoples. As a complement to the research priorities of the Department of History, Mediterranean Studies allows students to organize a transnational and comparative study of empires across time in a limited space, including: the Persian, Roman, and Ottoman Empires, and the modern European empires of France, Spain and Italy in the Maghreb and Middle East. Thematically, students can pursue the study of conflict and conflict resolution through a comparative and geographically-conscribed lens that includes the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as well as Turkish-Greek disputes over Cyprus, British-Spanish contests over Gibraltar, the wars in the Balkans, the World Wars, the French-Algerian War, and the Arab Spring, among others. Studies of migration (both historical and contemporary), as well as nationalism (Corsica, Cyprus, Macedonia, Lebanon, Israel, for example), can be included under the banner of Mediterranean Studies. Other potential intersecting topics include international trade, energy and environmental studies, and resource management, as well as the history of mathematics, astronomy, and philosophy, and literary and cultural studies of Medieval and Renaissance Europe and the Ottoman and Persian empires, among others.
The Mediterranean Studies Certificate is a cross-center collaboration between the Center for African Studies, the European Studies Center, the Global Studies Center, and the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies. To pursue a Mediterranean Studies Certificate with another regional or thematic focus, contact the advisor from that center.
