*Please Note: Due to Temporary Staffing Limitations, No Students will be Admitted to the Master's or Doctoral Programs in Anicent Near Eastern and Egyptian Studies for Fall 2020.
New York University’s graduate program in Ancient Near Eastern and Egyptian Studies (ANEES), inaugurated in 2005, offers its students the opportunity for advanced study in the languages, literatures, history, religions, archaeology, and art of the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt. It draws on NYU’s substantial resources in these areas and its faculty members in several different departments and institutes, including the Institute of Fine Arts, the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, and the Departments of Anthropology, Art History, Hebrew and Judaic Studies, and Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies. Interdisciplinary study is strongly encouraged. Students in the program work with the director of graduate studies and with a faculty adviser in their field to construct a coherent program of academic study that is individually tailored to prepare them for careers in research, teaching, and museum work.
Programs leading to the MA and PhD* degrees consist of courses in the relevant ancient languages, seminars, and individual reading and research courses, as well as the acquisition of practical skills required for scholarship and scholarly employment in their fields. With the approval of their advisers, students can receive credit for all courses taken in the Graduate School of Arts and Science and at other schools and institutes at NYU, as well as at universities participating in the Inter-University Doctoral Consortium (Columbia, Princeton, CUNY, Rutgers, Fordham, Stony Brook, and New School University). NYU has a program in Museum Studies that allows students in both the MA and PhD programs of ANEES to take an advanced certificate in that field with some additional courses.
In addition to their coursework, ANEES students will benefit from the location of the program in New York City, where the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Brooklyn Museum have important collections of art and artifacts from these civilizations. Public lectures at the museums and elsewhere in the city give students frequent opportunities to hear about the ongoing research of American and visiting international scholars.
The program shares the administrative resources of the Hebrew & Judaic Studies Department, where the founding faculty members have appointments, but it is separate from it academically. Students in ANEES are welcomed at Hebrew & Judaic Studies Department events and benefit from its larger community.