Event Videos

Featured Speakers:  Eduard Abrahamyan Date: Sunday March 1, 2026  Dr. Eduard Abrahamyan will offer an in-depth investigation of the contemporary geopolitics of the Caucasus through a multi-level analysis of regional political transformations. It delves into the contrasting foreign policies of small states in the Caucasus in response to the Russian interventions in Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014 and 2022, which marked Russia’s “return” as an order-forming power, challenging the agenda of Euro-Atlantic integration. Abrahamyan’s work enriches the emerging discourse on the regional complexities of the multipolar world order with multifaceted interpretations of politics and decision-making through its nuanced...

Featured Speakers:  Alice Ketabgian Dr. Tamara Ketabgian Date: Sunday February 15, 2026 7:00 PM EST | 4:00 PM PST   Location:  Ararat-Eskijian Museum/Sheen Chapel 15105 Mission Hills Rd Mission Hills, 91345 When Yevkine returns to Istanbul, forty years after her departure as a small child, she faces the chance of a lifetime. There, she meets her cousin and begins to uncover the dark family secrets that still remain within her ancestors' homeland. Unfolding amid laughter and tears, this moving historical novel traces the path of the Balyan family during the deportation of 1915 and beyond, as they build new lives for themselves.Their story...

Featured Speakers: Peter Balakian Diana Arterian Date:  Sunday February 8, 2026 1:00 PM Eastern | 10:00 AM Pacific   About:  Join us for the launch of Literary Lights 2026 featuring Peter Balakian, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of New York Trilogy, in conversation with writer, critic, editor and translator, Diana Arterian.  In an inventive, elliptical language, New York Trilogy explores one man’s journey from the late 1960s to the twenty-first century, as he moves through a series of experiences centered in New York City and the surrounding New Jersey Palisades. Throughout this long poem in three parts, the protagonist’s life is impacted by historical events including the Armenian Genocide,...

Featured Speaker: Dr. Armen Der Kiureghian, President Emeritus of the American University of Armenia. Date: Thursday January 29, 2026 The presentation starts with a brief description of the December 7, 1988, Spitak earthquake that instigated the idea of founding the American University of Armenia. As a co-founder of AUA, Der Kiureghian tells the story of how the university was established during a most difficult time in the recent history of Armenia, and how it evolved and advanced during the subsequent three decades. The book also chronicles AUA’s affiliation with the University of California and its being the first university outside the...

Featured Speaker: Arakel Minassian Date: Thursday January 29, 2026 Please join us for the re-launch of our graduate student Arakel Minassian’s co-written book Sahmanakhagh(kht): Hayerenn u hayerēně [Border-play: The Armenian and the Armenian]. In this book, Arakel and Armenia-based writer Anahit Ghazaryan narrate a moment in time that found Arakel navigating life in Armenia as a Lebanese-Armenian diasporan from Canada. Written as a set of correspondences between Arakel and Anahit on topics ranging from everyday interactions to specific musings on language and dialect, the book also narrates a meeting between the two major standards of Armenian – Arakel’s Western Armenian, the standard of much of the post-genocide...

Prof. Christina Maranci, the Mashtots Chair at Harvard University presented a special lecture at our Christmas Open House. Lecture Title: A Curious Connection: Worcestershire Sauce, Yeghishē T‘adēvosyan, and an Unpublished Armenian Hymnal [sharaknots‘] at Harvard Date and Time: Thursday, December 18, 20257:00 PM ET / 4:00 PM PT Location: NAASR Vartan Gregorian Building

Featured Speakers:Jesse ArlenSusan BarbaHagop GulludjianArthur Ipek Jesse Arlen, co-translator of the book, will be joined by Susan Barba, Hagop Gulludjian and Arthur Ipek. The virtual event is cosponsored by UCLA’s Narekatsi Chair of Armenian Studies, Promise Armenian Institute, Richard Hovannisian Endowed Chair in Modern Armenian History and University of Michigan’s Center for Armenian Studies. To Say with Passion: Why Am I Here? is a bilingual (Armenian and English) edition of Tenny Arlen’s poetry, an extraordinary body of work written in a language she began learning only a few years before her passing in 2015. The book brings together the full contents of the 2021...

Join Dr. Benjamin F. Alexander at NAASR for a discussion about Ararat in America, which examines the role of community leaders and other key community members who play a role in the sense of Armenian identity.  

Hybrid lecture by Dr. Anna Aleksanyan, a Postdoctoral Fellow of the Armenian Genocide Research Program within the Promise Armenian Institute at UCLA, with commentary by Dr. Taner Akcam.

Featured Speaker: Dr. Pietro A Shakarian Date: Sunday, November 16th Join Pietro A. Shakarian for a book talk on Anastas Mikoyan, a key figure in Soviet politics, from the Lenin to Brezhnev eras. Sponsored by:NAASR / Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation Lecture Series on Contemporary Armenian Issues and the Society for Armenian Studies (SAS)