Founded in 1892, the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, with over forty faculty and lecturers, is one of the largest such departments in the country. The department’s distinguished faculty offer cutting-edge interdisciplinary perspectives on the lands of the Near and Middle East. We teach more than twenty ancient and modern languages, as well as topics in archaeology, history, and literature. The research and teaching interests of scholars in NELC range over this historically central and geopolitically significant region from the Chalcolithic era to the present day.