Students enrolled in the MAMEC will study the great texts of Jewish and Islamic civilizations, ranging from theology and philosophy to poetry, mysticism, history, and critiques of Aristotelianism. Completed in a single year over the course of three consecutive semesters—fall, spring, and summer—its core class is the discussion-based St. John’s seminar, supplemented by language tutorials in classical Hebrew or Arabic. Preceptorials will provide participants with the chance to look at single topics or authors more closely.
Applications for the MAMEC’s Fall 2026 cohort open to the public in September 2025. Learn more here.
The MAMEC, while new to St. John’s, is a natural extension of the New Program syllabus that serves as the basis for the BA and the Master of Arts in Liberal Arts, or MALA. Tutor Krishnan Venkatesh refers to its curriculum as the “underbelly of sophomore year” while explaining how the undergraduate program abruptly jumps forward at that juncture from Tacitus and ancient Rome to the European Middle Ages. “Suddenly, we’re finding that people like Dante and Aquinas are referring back to Jewish and Islamic philosophers,” he says. “They’ve been reading their stuff; they’ve been questioning.”
SJC.edu – https://www.sjc.edu/news/st-johns-santa-fe-debuts-long-awaited-master-arts-middle-eastern-classics
The MAMEC fills in these blanks, and “is very valuable in giving us continuity,” Venkatesh adds. “It provides a greater understanding of where the New Program is coming from, although it takes place in a distinct conversation between Hebrew, Arabic, and some Christian thinkers. We are justified in treating it as a separate master’s program because it has its own coherence.”
