Current Year

Sunday, February 23, 2020, at 4:00 pm Ararat-Eskijian Museum, Sheen Chapel 15105 Mission Hills Road, Mission Hills, CA 91345 In the 1910s, the Armenian land question, which referred to the question of what would happen to the seized properties of Armenians, was one of the most debated topics in the Ottoman Empire. This talk explores the emergence and transformation of this social problem based on the Armenian, British and Ottoman sources. Scrutinizing the changes in the characteristics of actors involved in the seizure of Armenian properties, and the scale and geographical distribution of these seizures in the period between the mid-19th...

Thursday, February 20, 2020, at 7:30 pm NAASR Vartan Gregorian Building, Batmasian Hall, on the 3rd floor Reception after the program in the Shahinian SolariumIn this presentation of recent research, Taner Akçam argues that documents from the Ottoman archives in Istanbul indicate that first decision to exterminate Armenians was taken on December 1, 1914, well before most scholars have thought. Another document, a letter by Bahaettin Şakir, one of the main architects of the Armenian Genocide, written on March 3, 1915, says that the Central Committee of Union and Progress had decided to exterminate the Armenians, giving the government wide authority...

Thursday, February 13, 2020, 7:30-9:30 pm Batmasian Hall, NAASR Vartan Gregorian Building395 Concord Avenue, Belmont, MA 02478 A reception will take place after the program in the Shahinian Solarium. What role does the Armenian-American press serve today? Whom does it serve? What does its future look like? Join us for lively discussion of these and other issues.FEATURINGLeeza Arakelian, Assistant Editor, Armenian WeeklyAlin Gregorian, Editor, Armenian Mirror-SpectatorStephen Kurkjian, Pulitzer Prize winner, Boston Globe and NAASR Board Member MODERATORNAASR Board Member Stepan PiligianEarly Armenian immigrants created institutions in their new hometowns in America—among them churches, clubs, and political organizations which became focal...

Thursday, February 13, 2020, 7:00-8:30 pmWeatherhead East Asian Institute420 West 118th Street, New York, NY 10027Conference Room 918 (9th floor)In the 1910s historian Harry Harootunian's parents Ohannes and Vehanush escaped the mass slaughter of the Armenian genocide, making their way to France, where they first met, before settling in suburban Detroit. Although his parents rarely spoke of their families and the horrors they survived, the genocide and their parents' silence about it was a permanent backdrop to the Harootunian children's upbringing. In The Unspoken as Heritage Harootunian—for the first time in his distinguished career—turns to his personal life and family heritage...

Friday, February 7, 2020, 9:30 am - 7:00 pmUCLA Royce Hall, Room 314 10745 Dickson Ct, Los Angeles, CA 90095PROGRAM 9:30 – 10:00 am BREAKFAST10:00 – 10:10 am OPENING REMARKSAnatolii Tokmantcev, Director of the 2020 Graduate Student Colloquium in Armenian StudiesNear Eastern Languages and Cultures, UCLADr. S. Peter Cowe, Narekatsi Professor of Armenian StudiesNear Eastern Languages and Cultures, UCLAPANEL 1: Homeland and Diaspora: Displacement and its EffectsChair: Armen Adamian, Ethnomusicology, UCLA10:10 – 10:30 amAni Shahinian, “The Martyrdom of Awag Salmastec‘i (1390): An Inquiry into Business Relations Between Christians-Muslims in Salmast, Persia and Bałeš, Lake Van Region in Late Medieval Armenia” (University of Oxford)10:30...