Abril Bookstore presents

A PANEL DISCUSSION
with
TALAR CHAHINIAN
LILIT KESHISHYAN
GEGHAM MUGHNETSYAN
HRAG PAPAZIAN
 
On occasion of the recently released book
 
THE ARMENIAN DIASPORA AND STATELESS POWER
Collective Identity in the Transnational 20th Century
 
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2024 at 7:00pm
THE CENTER FOR ARMENIAN ARTS
250 S. Orange St.
Glendale, CA 91208
 
Co-Sponsored by:
USC Institute of Armenian Studies
UCI Center for Armenian Studies

For more information, call (818) 243-4112. Admission is free.
Parking at Orange Street Parking Structure 222 N. Orange St, Glendale, CA 91203
First 90 minutes free, $2.00 per hour
 
                         Order now!

From genocide, forced displacement, and emigration, to the gradual establishment of sedentary and rooted global communities, how has the Armenian diaspora formed and maintained a sense of collective identity? This book explores the richness and magnitude of the Armenian experience through the 20th century to examine how Armenian diaspora elites and their institutions emerged in the post-genocide period and used “stateless power” to compose forms of social discipline. Historians, cultural theorists, literary critics, sociologists, political scientists, and anthropologists explore how national and transnational institutions were built in far-flung sites from Istanbul, Aleppo, Beirut and Jerusalem to Paris, Los Angeles, and the American mid-west. Exploring literary and cultural production as well as the role of religious institutions, the book probes the history and experience of the Armenian diaspora through the long 20th century, from the role of the fin-de-siècle émigré Armenian press to the experience of Syrian-Armenian asylum seekers in the 21st century. It shows that a diaspora's statelessness can not only be evidence of its power, but also how this “stateless power” acts as an alternative and complement to the nation-state.

Talar Chahinian holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from UCLA and
lectures in the Program for Armenian Studies at UC Irvine, where she is
also Visiting Faculty in the Department of Comparative Literature. Her research and teaching interests include Armenian language and literary history, world literature, theories of trauma, transnationalism, and
translation, and digital humanities. She is the author of Stateless: The Politics of the Armenian Language in Exile (Syracuse University Press, 2023) and co-editor, along with Tsolin Nalbantian and Sossie Kasbarian, of The Armenian Diaspora and Stateless Power: Collective Identity in the Transnational 20th Century (Bloomsbury Press, 2023). She co-edits Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies and contributes regularly to the literary magazine Pakin.
 
Lilit Keshishyan is a Lecturer in The Writing Program at USC, where she has been teaching upper and lower division writing and critical reasoning courses since 2018. Forthe past two years she has been the director of the California History Through Armenian Experiences oral history project at the USC Institute of Armenian Studies. She holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from UCLA. Her academic work has explored the intersections of identity, language, and place in the literature of the Armenian diaspora. She is currently completing a translation project and conducting research with the Institute’s oral history collection, which examines community building through educational institutions in the greater Los Angeles Armenian diaspora.
 
Gegham Mughnetsyan is the Chitjian Researcher Archivist of the USC Dornsife Institute of Armenian Studies. Gegham works with Armenian diaspora archives and since 2018 has led Institute’s Displaced Persons Oral History and Documentation Project, documenting oral histories and archives of the community of Armenians who were displaced because of World War II. Gegham also works on building the Institute’s digital collection. He received his MA from American University, in Washington DC, where he studied International A-airs and his  BA from UC Berkeley in Peace and Con/ict studies where his focus was on US foreign policy toward Nagorno Karabakh.
 
Hrag Papazian is Assistant Professor of Anthropology and the holder of the Turpanjian Early Career Chair in Contemporary Armenian Studies at the University of Southern California. His research explores Armenian experiences in postgenocide contemporary Turkey, examining the Christian Armenian community, descendants of Islamized Armenians identifying as Muslim or Alevi Armenians, and labor migrants arriving in Istanbul from the Republic of Armenia. More recently, he has conducted research in Armenia, studying Turkish Armenians who have established residence there and investigating perceptions of and attitudes towards Turkey and Turks in Armenian society and politics after the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war.