MIRS- Middle East and North African Studies Student
About
Nicholas Kolenda is pursuing a Masters in International and Regional Studies with a specialization in Middle East and North African studies. He graduated from the University of Michigan (2018) with a dual major in political science and Near Eastern studies and received the George G. Cameron Award. His research experience was in the field of critical discourse analysis, researching the discursive and rhetorical changes in the New York Times' coverage of Muslims and Islam following 9/11. Nicholas has several fields of interest ranging from political theory, discourse studies, religious studies, and modern Levantine history. In a combination of all of these fields, he hopes to research Ba'athism in both Syria and Iraq as a convergence of various ideologies found in the Levant in the mid to late twentieth century.