The Levantine Review has published its first issue. The Levantine Review is a peer-reviewed interdisciplinary open access e-journal that aims to reflect on the hybrid Levantine Near East. As Boston College's flagship Middle East Studies journal, it will be published twice a year by the Department of Slavic and Eastern Languages and Literatures and the Boston College Libraries. The Review is dedicated to a critical study of the Levant, aiming to restitute the term "Levant" as a valid historical, geographic, political, linguistic, and cultural concept, and reclaim it as a positive and legitimate parameter of identity.

The journal proposes a study of the Near East from a broad, diverse, and inclusive purview, with the hope of bringing into focus the larger conceptual, geographic, social, linguistic, and cultural settings of the region. In line with its commitment to an ecumenical approach, The Levantine Review welcomes new research in a variety of Near Eastern Studies sub-fields and disciplines examining narratives, histories, cultures, and  intellectual traditions often overlooked in traditional scholarship. The journal will deal with the Levant and the Mediterranean from the perspective of Middle Eastern Studies, History, Political Science, Religion, Philology, Anthropology, Linguistics, Literature, Security Studies, Women Studies, and other disciplines of the humanities and social science. The Levantine Review’s aim is to advance an inclusive, deep understanding of the Near East, and cast a broad look at the region beyond familiar settings, and prevalent dominant models. It is an aim that is expected to be enhanced by the Review's open access nature.