Hons in Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations (HBA)

Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations is offered by the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations in the Faculty of Arts & Science at the University of Toronto's St. George campus, leading to an Honours Bachelor of Arts (HBA), with Specialist and Major options offered in General, Ancient, Medieval, and Modern streams, alongside a Minor. The department studies the civilizations and cultures of the Near and Middle East from Neolithic times to the present across fields including archaeology, history, mythology, religion and thought, art and architecture, and language and literature. Students can study one or more of the region's ancient and modern languages, including Akkadian, Ancient Egyptian, Arabic, Aramaic, Coptic, Ge'ez, Hebrew, Persian, Sumerian, Syriac, and Turkish, as a way of deepening their understanding of the region's cultures; many courses, however, do not require prior language knowledge, making the program accessible to students from a range of backgrounds.