 Welcome once again, everyone. I am Yorgos Dedes. I am a lecturer in Turkish, and I'm here to talk to you about the degrees offered by the Nain Middle East Department, or rather the Nain Middle East section, sorry. We used to be a department, but now we're part of a much bigger department called the School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics, which besides expertise in Nain Middle East covers South Asia, Southeast Asia and Africa as well. So the separate sections deal with each of these areas, and also we are together with the Department of Linguistics because most of our work is language based and indeed we aim for the degrees to be language based as much as possible. So this is a key feature of all the degrees we do. So what I will mainly talk to you about today are the various MA degrees of course, though it might be worth knowing and bearing in mind that the kind of flagship degree that section offers is the BA in Arabic and the BA in Languages and Cultures. These are the two degrees that allow specialization again in language study along with area studies and cultural studies related to them. But more particularly about the MA degrees, I will talk about the MA in Middle Eastern Studies, a degree which is, which until this year, until this September was known as the MA in Nain Middle Eastern Studies, but has now been streamlined with the name Middle Eastern Studies only, and it comes available with intensive language pathways, I'll talk about them as well. I'll say a few words about the MA in Islamic Studies and the MA in Iranian Studies, which are two other degrees that are offered at MA level. And as their name, you can imagine, suggests the MA Islamic Studies presupposes good knowledge of Arabic, which is the key language of Islamic Studies and MA Iranian Studies doesn't presuppose any prior knowledge of Persian, but is focused on Iran. And of course, the department, as you would expect, offers training in PhD programs, offers admits PhD students, though for the first year that they come in they're known as Enfield students until there is the process of an upgrade and so on. So that for some of you, I will talk about careers options a little bit, but the academic career and moving on to from an MA to PhD might well be a path that you want to consider. So, the section of the Nain Middle East is one of the oldest sections of the school. Indeed, as I said, one of the oldest departments of the school, going back to its very inception in 1916. So it's got a long tradition of dealing with the languages and cultures of the Nain Middle East. The Nain Middle East being mostly a term used for ancient Near Eastern Studies, and that used to cover the language of Akkadian Sumerian Hittite, and of course partly Hebrew as well. And these are indeed languages in which sources had and still had some expertise, though now they're mainly housed in the history and religions department. So, it may be worth pausing to reflect a little bit on the fact that, like so many other things in life, the term that we use to describe what we do and what the degree is about whether just Middle East or Nain Middle East is of not just a Western and colonial term in the sense that it came to gain its currency during the colonial period as part of colonialism, but it is very difficult to be precise about what countries today and what areas it covers and to sort of determine what exactly is the Middle East in the middle of and what is it east of. In a sense that what it's east of is a little bit interesting. I mean, easy to understand it's east of Europe so you can see how Eurocentric the conception is. And it's, in a sense, I think the general understanding is that it's in the middle of the vast area of the east that lies to the east of Europe. It's not the far east so to speak. There are many different ways to define the area and there are many different ways to refer to the conundrums about whether ontologically and essentially the east. There's a lot about the global south as well but the east and the Middle East in particular is stands rather as an antithesis of the west is something completely other to the west and so on, and, and should we should we so to speak. So the lines of those colonial definitions that east is east and west is west and never the train shall meet to refer to difficulties in fully accepting an equal footing in both cultures by members of either. There are some of the interesting issues with which, inevitably you will have to deal with, if you end up pursuing the degree MA in in Middle Eastern studies. There will be another way of referring to this kind of dominance of the west and, and, and the way in which its perspective dominates everything else is to refer to the west and the rest, and, and, and, in order to highlight exactly the problems and the arrogance of the position that the west is always in the dominant, dominant and dominating position. And though obviously, politically, and otherwise it may no longer be either dominant or dominating, it's the discourses with which we converse about these areas that that need to come into questioning. And the key sort of driving force and principle behind everything we teach it so as not just in the Middle Eastern section or, or, or the languages and cultures and linguistics department, but everywhere is that context and comparison is always important that you must never take any statement out of context and you must always consider the context in which even geographically takes place even the context within which you need to situate a given area, and you must always compare it therefore, not just to the west, but but either in everything that we do with the linguistic work and comparison with either a neighboring language or another language completely different is illuminating and allows us to move beyond the key concepts of empires, colonialism as a result of imperialism or leading into imperialism and coming out of empire, the emergence of nation states, and of course, never forgetting that there are always and still stateless nations in the Middle East. The Kurds, the Palestinians come into mind. In the first instance, but there are other more smaller groups. So, just to give you a quick impression of the wide range of countries that are covered in the Middle East, these are the countries that are covered in the Near East section in the Library of Congress. So, these taxonomies these classifications of course are interesting as well in as much as they lead into a classification of knowledge so you would have to go to that section of the library in order to find books and the articles and so on the collections about them. So, these are not just abstract categories but issues that may well affect your your your everyday studies as well. A couple of words now about before we go further into the MA Middle Eastern studies about the MA Islamic studies, which is in many ways a modern version of what for centuries since the appearance of Islam was the study of the canonical texts the Quran and the hadith, the study that used to take place in the madrasa in that is in a place of learning in the Islamic tradition, which now is complemented of course by both approaches and the logical methods that do not come from that madrasa tradition. So, it is as I said, designed for students who are already have the equivalent of the BA Arabic at SARS competence in Arabic that is a high fairly advanced level of Arabic. BA Arabic degrees four years including a year abroad so students reach quite an advanced level at the end of it. And the degree is is aimed at academics and teachers and everybody who is interested in Islam, both on the practical level in that is in case they are themselves engaged in serving different functions within Islamic communities, but also at an academic level. Likewise, the MA Iranian studies is a more focused and tailored degree that that, as you would expect focuses on Iran, but it takes a long, a long term view and looks at the history of the area. In its in its diachronic aspect, but, and again, takes the wider context into into consideration, but it very much also looks into not just the classical sort of palaces aspect of the Iranian dynasties and Iranian civilization, we can call it that part of the bigger picture of Islamic civilization, or even if you like, as is very common to refer to it these days, the Persian cosmopolists that is or some other scholars have called it the Balkans to Bengal will will will see about that in a little bit something that can also be covered as part of the main Middle Eastern studies that is the study of an area that covers where Persian was a language of literature from all the way from the Balkans to to to Bangladesh of today. So it's not all about that pre modern world, which can be exemplified here in one of the mosques in the square of Esfahan in the picture that you see, but in in the sort of technological advances that modern Iran has has been perfectly capable of like interesting bridges and big and infrastructure projects, but also in cultural achievements, even after the, the Iranian revolution, which are completely in line with similar developments in the West in the Western world. So, the degree very much tries to bring together these different strands and aspects of Iranian studies is this practice. So, we can now sort of talk a little bit more in detail about the MA Middle Eastern studies proper to make the points make a few key points about, in a sense, what it is not about the in or rather what it tries to inculcate the study of the Middle East is not only about. So it is not all about Islam, and and the degree by virtue of the courses that it allows you to take the modules it allows you to take. I think builds a very good case with with in from different fields about how one should avoid Islamizing everything to do about the Middle East that is thinking that everything is a manifestation of Islam seeing religion everywhere. There is a tendency which partly comes from the region itself to consider that Islam, because it's supposed it does not recognize between religion and politics because the two are part of the state and religion is it sometimes referred to in in an Arabic term Din Wadaullah are intertwined that Islam therefore is in everything, but there are perfectly so perfectly many areas of human activity in whether in in fine art or medicine or in literature. Or indeed in the sciences where not everything is based on Quran and Hadith and what most people would identify as the key aspect of Islam. And of course, just as as as as it would be worth considering that that Islam is not such a pervasive and all encompassing concept and in a degree such as this. It should come as no surprise that that a degree such as this makes strongly the case that that the Middle East is not all about Islamic fundamentalism, which is what unfortunately a lot of the West identifies it with and likewise it's not all about palaces and the elites and as I said already it's not all about nation states either it's not about empires and nation states considers stateless and and and nations or stateless groups. It is all about context and it's all about looking things within that proper analytical and historical framework. And of course likewise. It isn't all about men though that has traditionally been the perspective from which most of the histories and the studies of the of the area have been have been approached, but it's about women, children, war and resilience unfortunately are key things as well because they've been conflicts and and the whole point is is in a sense to develop a sense in with it to have the degree to which these conflicts were not perennial and unavoidable and anything of all that. So the MA Middle Eastern studies can be combined as I said with intensive language. Indeed, three languages have their own pathways, Arabic Persian in Turkish and the green and MA Middle Eastern studies with intensive language is two years if it's done full time and four years if it's done part time, because in a sense it's it's it's a double MA where you do double the amount of language study that you would normally do. For Arabic, it is wonderful that we're able to offer entry at various different levels of competence that is you don't need to start as a beginner, but, but for Persian and for Turkish, the entry is a beginner level that is in order to for the intensive language pathway to make sense for you. So we have to be beginner in Persian and Turkish. And because the three languages, as we will see in a moment have been the main languages of the Islamic world. Arabic can be studied of course on its own, but the study the intensive study of Persian can include both Arabic and Turkish, whereas the study of Turkish intensive study of Turkish includes necessarily a study of Persian in the first for those who want it because of the importance that both Persian and Arabic had in the development of a language like Turkish. So, come back to the key features now of the MA in Middle Eastern studies, the overriding advantage and overriding in a sense principle is that is that is the principle of interdisciplinary that you're allowed to never mind allowed you have to have your blights to take to combine modules in at least three disciplines, language counting is one discipline, in case you're wondering so the study of language though much encouraged is not obligatory. So you could combine three other disciplines as well and the disciplines are listed there for you so you can see they pretty much bring together all the departments that saw us, which are pretty much the departments that any school, any university rather focusing the humanities and the social sciences would have. So, it allows you to combine and find ways to bring together much in you know I have here the Belt and Road Initiative map from the Chinese perspective because this is in a sense, a good way to visualize the different interconnections on a geographical level on a geographical plane, but similar interconnections are needed between the disciplines in such a degree. The second key feature, and indeed, perhaps the most important feature of the MA is that you have freedom to create your own portfolio of modules. The MA is perhaps different from discipline and maze because it doesn't presuppose prior knowledge of the area, it doesn't presuppose particular study of a particular discipline or a particular area. So, you can be a complete newcomer to the Middle East and make the most of this MA or you may have already had a degree in Arabic or Middle Eastern studies from your undergraduate days and you would still be able to use this degree to deepen your knowledge and narrow your focus or rather narrow your focus perhaps in terms of something I come to in a second, the major course in relation to which you write a dissertation, but also bear in mind the interdisciplinarity as well. So, keeping a wider focus, bringing different disciplines together, something which may not have been possible in an undergraduate degree. Therefore, because of the fact that students can come to this degree from different levels of background and different levels of expertise on the Middle East, it is of primary importance that they determine they design, if you like, your own portfolio, and I've in the past sort of compared to coming from Turkish myself to designing your own killing. So in many ways, the curriculum is not a curriculum that is fixed. So know the curriculum and the portfolio of no two students in this degree looks alike. So it's very much like the way the killings never are exactly a copy of each other. The degree does not produce a particular line of courses leading to an award. It allows you indeed doesn't allow you, it forces you to make choices to think hard about what and how you would like to combine. Most courses now they're called modules are 15 credits these days are some 30 credit modules and you would have to consult the website to see what sort of combinations you could do as part of the so called guided options that these that is options that are about the Middle East, and from which you can choose to satisfy the interdisciplinary requirement, but design your own killing as well. In addition to that, you have to compulsory modules, one and remapping area studies and one about the Middle East, the one about the Middle East, it's called the Middle East in 10 weeks, or will be called. The Middle East in 10 issues. It is taught only for a term, which is 10 teaching weeks, in which it is a little bit too ambitious to try and cover 10 issues we have we have realized so then we've decided that a more appropriate name for the course will be the Middle East in 10 weeks, which includes some theory and as I was trying to intimate earlier, things like what to avoid when studying the Middle East. The kinds of things about over Islamization and so on. And the remapping area studies course which is another 15 credit module is is is more about theoretical aspects of what I'm thinking about the direction in which area studies in general not just Middle Eastern studies but area studies in general are going and ways in which recent work points in directions not not not tried and not pursued to date. Now, the summary of the key features that I hope as I'm speaking that you've had a chance to go over. An important aspect to highlight is the ability to choose from open options up to 30 credits, which is a right that you have in a lot of degrees at source and in particular this one. Open options can be modules on any topic. Outside the Middle East. That is, this is what would allow you we I said that we emphasize comparison this would allow comparison not just with a neighbor not just with a neighboring situation, but going way beyond that comparison with a completely different area. So, you have. You don't have to take open options, but you can. And the very wonderful thing about this is that you can exercise your right to open options by studying a second language. Though the normal sort of workload used to we used to say that you take four courses over the year. And now that is that would have been for 30 credit courses over the year. Now, with the fact and with the development that most courses are last for one term, the equivalent of a semester, though still source officially is not in the semester system. There could be many, many more courses, more modules that you have to do. But the equivalent of two 15 credit modules can be an additional language that is you can study 30 credits of a language of courses part of the interdisciplinary nature of the course so you could say do. You can continue with Persian, continue with Persian too, but if you wanted to start Arabic or start Turkish Hebrew start another language you could do that it could be another language of any of the languages that source offers you could study for me is you could study Japanese you could combine it with with any language at source, exercising your right to an open option. So this is a significant so to speak, in my mind, advantage that most students tend to take into consideration for this degree. I won't. This is the slide this slide sort of sets out the sort of way the intensive language pathway works with with splitting of your load between language and and and and the intensive study of the language, and the discipline modules as we call them. And of course, extra feature of the intensive pathways that you have a summer abroad in in in either Jordan, or Palestine, or at the minute for Arabic in my shot in Iran and in Turkey as part of the of intensive study of the language abroad. And the second year, this is assuming you're doing it full time, you consider you continue with less credits of the language see 30 credits as opposed to 60 credits the intensive study the first year, and you take the other 60 credits of discipline. The total of discipline you see is the same as what an MA Middle Eastern studies would be, but you take 60 plus 45 plus 30. And 135 credits of language on top of that. This information is also on the on the website. So, I would like to leave a lot of time for questions so I will skim through the following slides on the importance of the three languages. Rather sorry the four languages that are available in for study as part of in the near Middle Eastern section, Arabic Hebrew Persian and Turkish. And there is very little to be said most of you would be interested in Arabic about how it is a major language, historically, and also in the contemporary world of the Middle Eastern and spoken by a great number of countries of states and people. It's not the official language of the UN and so on. But it'd be worth pointing out that one of the surprising elements and aspects of Arabic is that it has a very significant variety in its dialects and in its spoken versions, which are very different from the written register. It's written educated register which is the one you mainly study at SARS, though of course you do study the dialects as well. Persian is a language more which is Indo-European, it is, it is not Semitic it comes, it is therefore a bit more familiar to those of you with knowledge of even English which is in the Indo-European but especially of languages like French Italian and Spanish, with whom it shares structural features. The key thing about Persian is that it was the language of like Arabic it developed into a language of literature and culture in the Islamic world, especially under the period of the Turkish dynasties after the year 1000. It is known primarily in the historical dimension as the language of poetry and literature, and it is worth remembering that it isn't just spoken in today's Iran but of course in Afghanistan and Tajikistan and other places outside the country of Iran where it is most famously studied. Unlike Arabic, but like Turkish as well, Persian does not have a huge difference between the spoken and the written, so that is a significant advantage when studying the language. Turkish and Persian rather needs to be considered with Turkish as part of what I referred to earlier, the Balkans to Bengal complex, which is both in the historical dimension, and mainly pre-modern in as much as the advent of capitalism and colonialism and the nation states in a sense disperse the sense of unity that was there up to a point, but one of the links, the political links behind the Persian cosmopolice was that were the Turkish dynasties and Persian was used in a lot of places where the rulers were Turkish dynasties, the rulers were Turkish, so Turkish developed into a literary language east and west for the Turkish world as well and then developed an interesting characteristic which may be of interest to a lot of you in as much as it was used as an administrative language, it means that we have myriads, literally thousands of documents, administrative documents about the history, not just of the Ottoman Empire, but of all the lands of the Middle East, including Iran, written in Turkish that have not been studied anywhere near as much as the archival documents and in Arabic and Persian have simply by virtue of the fact that there's not as many people that were experts in the language, so for the reading of these archival documents or documents of all kinds that are housed today in archives, you need proficiency in modern Turkish and then in Ottoman which is the version of the language written in the Arabic script. So, though you may not have considered it, Turkish offer some advantages both for the historical and the political aspect as well. I don't need a lot of you when thinking of source will know that that one of the great advantages of source as well is the amazing wealth of its library, which is a national library one of the five research libraries in the UK. And a great asset to the school and to London. Before I will move on to questions, a couple of words about career opportunities in terms of your, the kinds of roles, sorry the kinds of slides around the roles. I mentioned the academic thing but as you can see graduates of this degree work either in NGOs and all kinds of companies that go combine expertise in the different disciplines that are meant to be combined economics, politics, and of course humanitarian work as well, some going to education, research and analysis is also very common and risk consultancy is very common and in light of the fact that I've managed to go on for a bit for almost 10 minutes longer than I wanted to, I will stop here so that we can move to your questions. So, thank you very much for listening. And I'm not quite think I'm pretty sure you can all speak right you can all unmute yourself and speak. So, the floor is open to your questions please. We have a hand from Marcel. Hello. Hello, yes. Sorry, I think my volume so you know this. No, we can hear you all right. I can't really hear you. Give me a second. No problem with you. We can hear you. I can hear you better. Excellent. Well done. Yes, I just had a question about just the course in general, just some general questions. So, for me specifically I wanted to do the MA, just because I've always been interested in. Either the Middle Eastern studies or the Iranian studies. Okay, yes, fine. Yes, so I actually come from a game design backgrounds are very different from this. So is it is that something that is very the main Middle Eastern studies will be for you not the MA Iranian studies they may Iranian studies usually wants a little bit of background in Iranian studies to begin with, whether the Middle Eastern studies or something else so, but the MA Middle Eastern studies is exactly designed. Or rather, it, you know, it doesn't produce a specific type, it is designed for without any particular background in mind. So when I say it's designed as you will have gathered the MA Middle Eastern studies offers you the opportunity to study the Middle East from available options at source. So you would be, you know, you would have, you would need to prove that you are academically sound and you have some everything you would be able to cope with the degree but yes you could you could do it. That's fine with the with the Iranian studies I do find that interesting when you say it requires a certain level what do you mean. There is a certain background I said not a level, you know, it, you know, okay, you know that for you to have studied something about the Middle East you do to have had some prior exposure to Iran. Usually that is that is what is expected but you can, as you will have perhaps noticed that there isn't much difference between what you can do the MA Iranian studies has its own course. And requirements and once you come into sauce, but you could take the same courses within the structure of the main Middle Eastern studies. It really is more a case of what you want your degree to be in, but the name of your degree should be rather, and for somebody like you with no prior background, I would imagine that something like Middle Eastern studies would be more appealing in giving anybody a clearer impression of what it is you've done. Yeah. Okay, that makes sense. Okay. I also wanted to know about because of the career opportunities as well. I've been working as a, as a game designer I find I find that it wasn't very the fact of sitting down all day, or just being or being very much in office of I was kind of mentally straining. So I wanted to know for career opportunities with this kind of stuff, because I do find it interesting is there anything that is very like on your feet or quite. Good point. I mean, you know, as you will have maybe seen on the slide humanitarian worker working on the field. Normally is is even just the mere fact of living in the Middle East means that we won't be sitting in your chair. For the entire length of the day because something will have happened to the sense of peace and quiet in a sense that there is development, but no joke aside. There would be works that there would be jobs and lines of work that would involve much more hands on experience and so on. So let me have a few, let's have a round of questions. I'll come back to you myself for your question, but Georgia and may I encourage all of you. I'll take three or four questions so that we hear the questions first, and then see whether we can combine the answers. Yes, Georgia please. I, I have a question I've also put it in the chat but at the end of the year I'll have a BA in Middle Eastern Studies. Yes, an option of an MA in Middle Eastern studies that's only a year but still includes Arabic language. All right, yes, I'll address that let's hear from Steve's question. So let's hear from Steve with your point of question Steve if you can hear us. Sorry. Yeah, this may be a bit specific but I was just wondering, I would be a mature student in my 50s but I have a PhD in Japanese history. But I haven't done Arabic, or any Middle Eastern studies before so I was just wondering I know there's talked about the two year path with the MA and intensive language studies, but I was also wondering whether it would be advisable or possible before that to even do the undergraduate BA in Arabic, particularly because I'm from the US so I never did a levels or whatever. I mean I have whatever yeah yeah okay good point about language competence I'll address that. And indeed actually your two questions are related Georgia. Yes, by all means, in the one year full time MA in Middle Eastern studies you can study not one but two languages but certainly you can do 30 credits of Arabic. You can't do 60 credits of Arabic because as you will appreciate, you can't do two levels of language at a given year. Arabic however is very advanced as it may be in your case I don't know, you could do courses there are some courses in literature, and one in history that require or the ones in Islamic studies that require knowledge of Arabic so though they're not strictly speaking language courses, their language use courses as they're called, not language acquisition courses. You could do them, but certainly, certainly you can do 30 credits of a given language as part of the one year full time MA or the one year MA in Middle Eastern studies. Even in that MA, you could study if you were so inclined the second language, Steve and on the point of levels of language reached and so on and be a Arabic versus say the MA and intensive Arabic pathway. The truth is the honest truth is that the BA Arabic would allow you to reach a much higher level of Arabic, but of course in double the time in four years. So, whether it is, you know, it depends on what you want to use it for. I would have thought that the MA with intensive pathway for Arabic, which is probably intensive that is, you do study 60 credits of Arabic in the first year. In the first year of your BA in Arabic you study 90 credits of Arabic if you just do Arabic so you do more in one year. In the BA Arabic you don't go on to a summer course. In the BA Arabic you go on to year two and then you go in the year abroad in the intensive language program, you do 60 credits plus the year of the summer abroad. It's almost the same and a little bit more even than the first year of the very intensive BA Arabic, and then you continue with Arabic in your second year. Obviously if you're interested then that still this is this gets you to a very good level. You've accomplished quite a lot in a short period of time, but it's with still full short of competence in the language and so on. You then have to make plans either if you wanted to go into another PhD by studying in the in the in the area, spending more time in the area yourself or finding it another degree or continuing with the study of the language as part of the PhD degree. This is the more direct answer I can give you about the levels of Arabic that you will be dealing with. Okay. Yes. You know, as I was saying earlier that you know you obviously come with an awful lot of linguistic and historical expertise and so on, still the degree because of the way it allows you to mix and match things should have quite a few things to offer to you. Even if you don't have questions, the rest of you I don't see any more hands raised Georgia. Oh no somebody yes. Sorry, then put my glasses on. Pick a horn, you had a momentarily raised your hand and now Julia has. I was going to say you don't need to think of a specific question, any comments and and and and something you want to share about your background and how that might fit and what you might want to do would be would be most welcome. All right. Sorry, pick a horn if if I'm pronouncing your perhaps your first name correctly, would you like to come on or. I sure. And then Julia has her hand up with Julia will come to you afterwards. You both ask your questions first and then I'll try to address them. Yes. Any questions actually have I have a background in journalism and I wanted to branch out into curating arts I was looking at curating arts and I've always have an interest in Islamic studies and so I just wanted to explore that's why I'm here today. Excellent, yes. Okay, I'll come to that. I'll have, I have a couple of words to say about that. That's great. So Julia what was your point. Yeah, I was just wondering if, if I was to do the MA with the intensive language, but I've got a pretty extensive background in Arabic. Would it be, but I wanted to do a second language as well. Would it be best to choose my intensive language is Arabic, or if I want to do Turkish or Persian that on the other option. Yeah, you've come to the right shop. I can, I'll deal with that. But let me first go back to the question about, you know, art history, curating Islamic art, Islamic studies and so on. Obviously, I mean, this degree would be quite the MA Middle Eastern studies would offer you the chance to do. I didn't go into this sort of nitty gritty. It's not even nitty gritty. Self-evident. You need to choose a major course in the degree which is a course in relate it is major only in the sense that it is a course in relation to which you write the dissertation. This course can of course be a course on on Islamic art history and the good advantage of this degree is that it wouldn't require you to have significant background in art history. But nonetheless, you could write the dissertation on a related topic, and you could take more courses that are the courses that are related to Islamic art. And from that point of view, though it isn't specifically art historical or Islamic art degree. It's got a lot to recommend it for, especially if you were considering. I know that a year of language isn't isn't isn't doesn't make or break a career doesn't make or break anything but actually an introduction to a language may. It doesn't happen to everyone, but may kind of change your life a little bit because only once you start learning a language which is not the easiest thing to do. I mean, not, you know, there is no such things in easy languages, some are easier than others. Some are harder than others. But the mere fact that you develop an affinity, the tend the temptation to go to the country for improving your language leads to other things. You know, a lot of serendipitous things happen when you start learning a language or may happen. I'm not promising that this will happen to all of you but my experience from teaching one of the minor languages like Turkish is that students are always presently surprised with one or another aspect. And I would say in conclusion, the tickathon that this is, you've not come to such a bad shop here, it is not specializing what you want, but it allows you to do what you're partly interested in. It allows you to combine with the language which we would strongly recommend, which we may not want to do. So it's got a lot of things going for it. To your point about language, I think you yourself could see that it would make more sense to do either Persian or Turkish, so that you can do more of that and less of the Arabic because you could still do say if you did intensive Persian. There is a small catch about that I'll come back in a second because that which is simply that for intensive Persian, you can't do in the first year 60 credits of Persian because there is no such course anymore. In the good old days, so to speak, we could afford and we had 60 credits like we now have 60 credits of Arabic intensive Arabic for a year for Persian and for Turkish and for Hebrew, the maximum that you can do over language in a given year is 30 credits. But you could either do, you could do 30 credits of Persian plus an Arabic course at an appropriate level, this will probably be allowed for Persian, it isn't officially allowed yet, but but I'm sure it will be allowed. And the same would be true in Turkish but if you did intensive Turkish, you would have to do in your first year, Turkish and Persian. So the way Turkish has been so strongly influenced by Persian. The second year, when you would, you would go to the summer abroad for Turkish, where you could easily spend a bit of a summer with doing something Persian related. A significant advantage, or in terms of the summer abroad of the three languages of Turkish perhaps is that you go to one of Turkey's better universities for the Turkish summer course, Boazity University, Bosphorus University in Istanbul, which is, which is a powerhouse of the possibly Turkish best, or one of Turkey's better universities and Turkey has good universities, not that the neighbouring countries don't, but it's got a long tradition in it, as well in university level study, whereas for both Arabic and Persian you go more to language institutes, not that are not of a large university, in Iran it is, you go, if you can go to Iran, you go to Mashhad, the third OC university, in Mashhad which is a good place for learning Persian away from sort of the corruption say of Tehran, but in terms of accent and in terms of other things, corruption. So you learn kind of pristine proper Persian in Mashhad, but the university is not quite the powerhouse that, you know, a big university might be. Anyway, so for Turkish as I was saying you once you complete the summer abroad you come back for more Turkish and in the second year you could use exercise your right to 30 threads of open option by taking more Arabic. So you would be learning two new languages and doing a bit of language if you did Turkish. So, certainly considered doing the other languages. And in many ways this is a plea I would make to all of you, partly related to the point that Steve here made earlier, who comes from an academic background and you know as he said you know from Japanese and so on. Arabic is not. I mean, I alluded to this when addressing Steve's point is that Arabic needs is a language that is wonderful, both in terms of its literary and intellectual richness. But it needs a five year plan, it needs a long term plan for you to be able to make a lot with Arabic, you need to be thinking before even the two years of MA and intensive Arabic in order to be able to bring the language to a seriously useful level. Partly because of the Deglossia problem. Deglossia being the technical name, a bit old fashioned given to when the written register of a language and the spoken register are almost mutually non understandable. So, this is not the case for Persian and Turkish so for these languages, you are at a much at a much bigger advantage of getting somewhere within after a year even just a year or certainly after two years. And they have the advantage of being languages that are not preferred. The same applies to Hebrew that are not preferred by the majority of the students as you can well appreciate the overwhelming majority of the students interested in the Middle East are interested in Arabic for some good reasons because they've given it some thought either in terms of their interest or in terms of their own personal background and so on. They have a perfectly good reason for doing Arabic and that is exactly as it should be. But there's there are cases of students who are interested in people who are interested in the Middle East, but they're not they're not quite sure what language in the Middle East they should be engaged with. And this is something that I would like you to reflect upon. I've talked a lot again so. Point. Sorry Anna yes, I imagine people may have other places to go to another talk that they might want to. I think so so our next sessions are about to begin. Thank you so much for your presentation and for answering. I might have had some questions that weren't addressed. I'm sorry, sorry to rush off here and but I'm going to put my email address in a chat here. And so feel free if you have questions that weren't addressed today to contact me and we'll we'll make sure that you connect with the right people to get all the information that you want so it's AF35. So feel free to send any questions or comments or thoughts along to me and I'll make sure they get to the right people and thank you your guys for the presentation. Yes, pleasure. There's always alright nice to see you or see you on see your names on the screen, everybody. I hope I look forward to seeing your applications if you decide to apply and hope you found you will take something useful away from the session today. Goodbye. Thanks everyone. Bye.