Majors in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations (NELC) at the University of Chicago pursue rigorous knowledge about a region of the world that is known as ''the cradle of civilization'' and the home of several important religious and cultural traditions, as well as one of the most important geopolitical areas of our contemporary world. NELC majors acquire languages, learn how archaeologists, economists, historians, linguists, literary scholars, and careful readers of legal, religious, economic, and other kinds of texts critically evaluate evidence, and acquire, largely in small class settings, analytical writing, thinking, and research skills that will help prepare them for a variety of careers. Geographically centered on the Nile to Oxus and Danube to Indus region, NELC also embraces North Africa and Islamic Spain, as well as Central Asia and the Balkans in its ambit, from the early Bronze Age to the recent era of revolutions. Students can gain expertise in a wide variety of languages, including the living spoken tongues of the modern Middle East and Central Asia (Arabic, Armenian, modern Hebrew, Kazakh, Persian, Turkish, and Uzbek) or languages that open gateways onto the ancient past (Aramaic, Babylonian, Biblical Hebrew, Coptic, Egyptian Hieroglyphics, Elamite, Ge'ez, Hittite, Middle and Old Persian, Ottoman, Syriac, Ugaritic, etc.). In an interdisciplinary area studies department like NELC, majors learn about the region through primary sources (material, oral, or textual) and scholarly analysis, structuring their curriculum around various disciplines and methodologies, including stratigraphy and paleobotany, comparative literature, cultural and civilizational studies, economics and numismatics, gender studies, history (economic, political, religious, and social), human rights, public policy, and digital humanities approaches.