Unpacking Armenian Studies

Dr. Ari Sekeryan, an honorary fellow of Oriental Studies at the University of Oxford, speaks about growing up and learning to be Armenian in Turkey. This talk took place at Innovate Armenia on September 23, 2017 at USC.

To learn more about the USC Institute of Armenian Studies, visit http://armenian.usc.edu.

Dr. Irina Ghaplanyan is Armenia's Deputy Minister of Nature Protection. She earned a PhD in political science from the University of Cambridge and is a published author specializing in states in transition, conflict resolution, and security studies. In this episode, Dr. Ghaplanyan discusses Armenia's evolving environmental policy. The talk took place at Innovate Armenia on May 18, 2019 at USC.

To learn more about the USC Institute of Armenian Studies, visit http://armenian.usc.edu.

Mysteries, miracles, and occasional miseries – Dr. Victor Agadjanian, professor of sociology at UCLA, comes across these phenomena in his research. From studying Swahili, to sexual risks of migrant women in Russia, to gender ideology in Karabakh, he focuses on social demography, migration, and sexual and reproductive health and behavior. In conversation with Salpi Ghazarian, director of the USC Institute of Armenian Studies, Dr. Agadjanian discusses his path to studying similar issues in disparate places, from Africa to Armenia.

To learn more about the USC Institute of Armenian Studies, visit http://armenian.usc.edu.

References:

Agadjanian, V. "Exclusion, violence, and optimism: Ethnic divides in Kyrgyzstan." Ethnicities (online first)

Agadjanian, V., and Sarah R. Hayford. 2018. "Labor migration and marital dissolution in rural Mozambique" Journal of Family Issues 39(5): 1236-1257

Agadjanian, V., Cecilia Menjívar, and Natalya Zotova. 2017. "Legality, racialization, and immigrants' experience of harassment in Russia"Social Problems 64(4): 558-576

Agadjanian, V., and Karine Markosyan. 2017. "Male labor migration, patriarchy, and the awareness-behavior gap: HIV risks and prevention among migrants' wives in Armenia" AIDS Care 29(6): 705- 710

Agadjanian, V. 2015. "Women's religious authority in sub-Saharan Africa: Dialectics of empowerment and dependency" Gender & Society 29 (6): 982–1008

Agadjanian, V., and Arusyak Sevoyan. 2014. "Embedding or uprooting? The effects of international labor migration on rural households in Armenia" International Migration 52(5): 29-46

From Jerusalem to Nebraska, Dr. Bedross Der Matossian, Associate Professor of Modern Middle East History at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, remembers life in a post-Ottoman city, and describes his path toward a study of the politics of the late Ottoman period. He speaks with Salpi Ghazarian, Director of the USC Institute of Armenian Studies. Dr. Der Matossian is currently president of the Society for Armenian Studies. To learn more about the USC Institute of Armenian Studies, visit http://armenian.usc.edu.

References:

Bedross Der Matossian, Shattered Dreams of Revolution: From Liberty to Violence in the Late Ottoman Empire (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2014).

Bedross Der Matossian, Hüsrana Uğrayan Devrim: Geç Dönem Osmanlı İmparatorluğu'nda Hürriyet ve Şiddet (Istanbul: İletişim Publications, 2016) (Turkish translation of Shattered Dreams of Revolution).

Bedross Der Matossian, Sulaiman Mourad, and Naomi Koltun-Fromm (eds.), Routledge Handbook on Jerusalem (Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2018).

Bedross Der Matossian and Barlow Der Mugrdechian (eds.), Western Armenian in the 21st Century: Challenges and New Approaches(Fresno, CA: The Press at Fresno State, Fall 2019).

Karabakh or Artsakh? Border security or daily life challenges? Armine Aleksanyan discusses these questions in conversation with Salpi Ghazarian, Director of the USC Institute of Armenian Studies. Aleksanyan has been serving as the Deputy Foreign Minister of Nagorno Karabakh (Artsakh) since 2015. She is a graduate of both the Artsakh State University and the Diplomatic Academy of London at University of Westminster.

To learn more about the USC Institute of Armenian Studies, visit http://armenian.usc.edu.

From village boy, to student activist, to prisoner of conscience, to economist turned historian and sociologist, Dr. Taner Akçam has lived many lives. In conversation with Salpi Ghazarian, Director of the USC Institute of Armenian Studies, Dr. Akçam chronicles his unique journey to becoming a leading scholar in Armenian Genocide studies.

To learn more about the USC Institute of Armenian Studies, visit http://armenian.usc.edu.

References:

Akcam, Taner. Killing Orders: Talat Pasha's Telegrams and the Armenian Genocide. Palgrave, 2018.

Akçam Taner, and Kurt Ümit. The Spirit of the Laws: the Plunder of Wealth in the Armenian Genocide. Berghahn Books, 2018.

The Young Turks' Crime Against Humanity: The Armenian Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing in the Ottoman Empire. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012.

Judgment at Istanbul: The Armenian Genocide Trials, with Vahakn Dadrian. New York: Berghahn Books, 2011.

A Shameful Act: Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility. New York: Metropolitan Books, November 2006.

From Empire to Republic: Turkish Nationalism and the Armenian Genocide. London: Zed Books, 2004.

He's a boy from a village near Ardahan, a "revolutionary", then a "terrorist" in the words of the Turkish government, and now an academic -- Dr. Taner Akçam is a leading historian of the Armenian Genocide. After escaping a Turkish prison, and settling in Germany, he began his research on political violence in the late Ottoman Empire and early Republic of Turkey. In 2008, Dr. Akçam was appointed Chair in Armenian Genocide Studies at Clark University.

To learn more about the USC Institute of Armenian Studies, visit http://armenian.usc.edu.

References:

Akcam, Taner. Killing Orders: Talat Pasha's Telegrams and the Armenian Genocide. Palgrave, 2018.

Akçam Taner, and Kurt Ümit. The Spirit of the Laws: the Plunder of Wealth in the Armenian Genocide. Berghahn Books, 2018.

The Young Turks' Crime Against Humanity: The Armenian Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing in the Ottoman Empire. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012.

Judgment at Istanbul: The Armenian Genocide Trials, with Vahakn Dadrian. New York: Berghahn Books, 2011.

A Shameful Act: Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility. New York: Metropolitan Books, November 2006.

From Empire to Republic: Turkish Nationalism and the Armenian Genocide. London: Zed Books, 2004.

Inclusion and exclusion: the challenges of identity formation during childhood in Turkey, and in the study of children during genocide -- Dr. Nazan Maksudyan writes on these topics. Her research focuses on the history of children and youth in the Ottoman Empire during the 19th and early 20th centuries, with a focus on non-Muslims and gender, sexuality, education and humanitarianism.

To learn more about the USC Institute of Armenian Studies, visit http://armenian.usc.edu.

References:

Ottoman Children & Youth During World War I (Syracuse University Press, 2019)

"Agents or Pawns? Nationalism and Ottoman Children during the Great War" (2016)

Orphans and Destitute Children in the Late Ottoman Empire (Syracuse University Press, 2014)

Women and the City, Women in the City (Berghahn, 2014), provided an under-researched gendered lens to Ottoman urban history.

"Orphans, Cities, and the State: Vocational Orphanages (Islahhanes) and 'Reform' in the Late Ottoman Urban Space" (2011)

"Foster-Daughter or Servant, Charity or Abuse: Beslemes in the Late Ottoman Empire" (2008)

Language and identity— but this time also about belonging and anxiety (or guilt) – Dr. Shushan Karapetian researches these issues in the framework of heritage languages in a diasporic context. In conversation with Salpi Ghazarian, director of the Institute of Armenian Studies, they discuss the trajectory of bilingual education, and the link between the Armenian language and expressions of Armenianness.

To learn more about the USC Institute of Armenian Studies, visit http://armenian.usc.edu.

References:

"Out of the box: Challenging approaches to language transmission in the Diaspora." Innovate Armenia. University of Southern California. Los Angeles, CA, April 2. https://bit.ly/21AKgSK

Karapetian, S. (2014) "How Do I Teach My Kids My Broken Armenian?": A Study of Eastern Armenian Heritage Language Speakers in Los Angeles (Doctoral dissertation). https://bit.ly/2VM7Oal

Karapetian, S. (2019). "Eastern Armenian speakers as potential Western Armenian learners: Reflections on second dialect acquisition." B. Der Matossian & B. Der Mugrdechian (Eds.), Western Armenian in the 21st Century: Challenges and New Approaches. Fresno, CA: The Press at Fresno State. https://bit.ly/2VZycNS

Karapetian, S. (2018). "The evolving role of language in the construction of Armenian identity in the diaspora." In H. Berberian & T. Daryaee (Eds.), Armenian Identity Through the Ages. Mazda Publishers.

Karapetian, S. (2018). "Defective Armenian: The destructive impact of heritage language anxiety." In S. Kresin & S. Bauckus (Eds.), Connecting across Languages and Cultures: A Heritage Language Festschrift in Honor of Olga E. Kagan. Bloomington, IN: Slavica.

Karapetian, S. (2017). "Challenges with institutionalizing a pluricentric diasporic language: The case of Armenian in Los Angeles." In O. Kagan, M. Carreira, & C. Chick (Eds.), A Handbook on Heritage Language Education: From Innovation to Program Building. New York and London: Routledge.

Identity, diaspora, literature -- Dr. Lilit Keshishyan explores these topics in a conversation with the Director of the Institute of Armenian Studies, Salpi Ghazarian. Her dissertation examines the representation and reconceptualization of identity in Armenian Diaspora literature focusing on the works of Vahé Oshagan, Hakob Karapents and Vahe Berberian.

To learn more about the USC Institute of Armenian Studies, visit http://armenian.usc.edu.