Cummings Foundation Grant Recipient

Event Videos — Ararat Eskijian Museum

Jackie in the Near East

Jackie in the Near East

The world premiere of the recently discovered lost film, “Jackie in the Near East,” a 1924 short film produced by the Near East Relief (NER) and featuring child-star Jackie Coogan, who helped raise millions of dollars in America for orphans of the Armenian Genocide.

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How Western Armenian Came To Be: A Story of People, Purism, and Global Ideas

How Western Armenian Came To Be: A Story of People, Purism, and Global Ideas

This presentation by Jennifer Manoukian explores the emergence of the standard language known today as Western Armenian. In particular, it examines the intellectual labor that led to the acceptance of this language as the dominant written medium among Ottoman Armenians by 1915.

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THE BALAYANS: Ottoman Architecture and Balyan Archive

THE BALAYANS: Ottoman Architecture and Balyan Archive

In 2021, Büke Uras published his most comprehensive publication to date, “Balyans, Ottoman Architecture and Balyan Archive.” The Mayor of Istanbul financed the 3rd and 4th editions of the book and decided it to be the official diplomatic gift of Istanbul Municipality, a first in Republic’s history for an item of Armenian subject.

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The Horrors of Adana: Revolution and Violence in the Early Twentieth Century

The Horrors of Adana: Revolution and Violence in the Early Twentieth Century

The Horrors of Adana offers one of the first close examinations of these events, analyzing sociopolitical and economic transformations that culminated in a cataclysm of violence. Drawing on primary sources in a dozen languages, he develops an interdisciplinary approach to understand the rumors and emotions, public spheres and humanitarian interventions that together informed this complex event.

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The Extraordinary Humanitarian Legacy of the Near East Relief and Three Generations of Kerrs

The Extraordinary Humanitarian Legacy of the Near East Relief and Three Generations of Kerrs

This audio-visual presentation, featuring rare archival material, photographs and video clips, sheds light on the massive life-saving impact of the Near East Relief and more specifically, the Kerr family, on a generation of survivors of the Armenian Genocide. Responding to horrific eyewitness accounts and urgent pleas for help, the U.S. mobilized an unprecedented campaign of humanitarian assistance led by the Near East Relief (NER) and given legs by a small army of relief workers who risked their lives to help the destitute survivors in distant, dangerous lands. Among the volunteers was Stanley Kerr, a young biochemist in the U.S. Army who, learning of the opportunity to join the relief effort, in 1919 boarded a ship to the crumbling Ottoman Empire.

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