Event Videos (2020–2025) — #NAASR

In person panel discussion on "Armenians, Kurds, and the Early Turkish Republic," in person at Columbia University

Literary Lights is a monthly reading series organized by the International Armenian Literary Alliance (IALA), the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR), and the Krikor and Clara Zohrab Information Center. Learn more here.

Dr. Artyom Tonoyan's talk focuses on some of the most interesting and critical themes emerging from the decades-long Soviet and Russian press coverage of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

The Armenian contribution to Ottoman photography is supposedly well known, with histories documenting the famous studios of the imperial capital, Ottoman Armenian-run establishments that produced Orientalist visions for tourists and images of modernity for a domestic elite.

Claude Mutafian’s most recent book, Jérusalem et les Arméniens: Jusqu’à la conquête ottomane (1516), presents the relations between Armenia and Jerusalem in their historical and artistic context with an abundance of maps, genealogical charts, and images.

With over 5.5 million maps, the Library of Congress holds the world’s largest cartographic collection. In this illustrated lecture, the Library’s Armenian and Georgian Area Specialist Dr. Khatchig Mouradian tells the stories behind a selection of maps of Armenia or by Armenian cartographers that have made their way into this collection, taking us through a journey across the globe and over the centuries.

In this talk, Dr. Ümit Kurt explores Mimaroğlu’s biography including his relationship with the Armenian journalist and professor Diran Kelekian, who was arrested by his former student Mimaroğlu in April 1915 and killed; examine the continuation of a genocidal regime in the modern Turkish Republic and how genocidaires such as Mimaroğlu constituted core elements of the new state; and explore what kinds of administrative/bureaucratic mechanisms made the Armenian Genocide possible and how technocrats like Mustafa Reşat, taking charge of these mechanisms, facilitated the genocide for political decision-makers.

Author and lawyer Matthew Karanian discusses how a series of maps that his great uncle Mardiros Kheranian produced one century ago encouraged Matthew's own research of ancient Armenia, and guided him along the way. Matthew has published several books about Armenia.

The presentation undertakes a close reading of a major painting – Provincial Wedding in Moush – by the notable, but now forgotten, Constantinople artist Garabed ‘Charles’ Nichanian (1861-1950).

The presentation provided an overview of the collections and a demonstration on how to use the Visual History Archive by Manuk Avedikyan, former program officer (Armenian Genocide collections) at USC Shoah Foundation.