NEWSLETTER FALL 2017 Liminality & ISSUE 11 Memorial Practices IN 3 Notes from the Director THIS 4 Faculty News and Updates ISSUE: 6 Year in Review: Orphaned Fields: Picturing Armenian Landscapes Photography and Armenian Studies Orphans of the Armenian Genocide Eighth Annual International Graduate Student Workshop 11 Meet the Manoogian Fellows NOTES FROM 14 Literature and Liminality: Exploring the Armenian in-Between THE DIRECTOR Armenian Music, Memorial Practices and the Global in the 21st 14 Kathryn Babayan Century Welcome to the new academic year! 15 International Justice for Atrocity Crimes - Worth the Cost? Over the last decade, the Armenian represents the first time the Armenian ASP Faculty Armenian Childhood(s): Histories and Theories of Childhood and Youth Studies Program at U-M has fostered a Studies Program has presented these 16 Hakem Al-Rustom in American Studies critical dialogue with emerging scholars critical discussions in a monograph. around the globe through various Alex Manoogian Professor of Modern workshops, conferences, lectures, and This year we continue in the spirit of 16 Multidisciplinary Workshop for Armenian Studies Armenian History fellowships. Together with our faculty, engagement with neglected directions graduate students, visiting fellows, and in the field of Armenian Studies. Our Profiles and Reflections Kathryn Babayan 17 postdocs we have combined our efforts two Manoogian Post-doctoral fellows, ASP Fellowship Recipients Director, Armenian to push scholarship in Armenian Studies Maral Aktokmakyan and Christopher Studies Program; 2017-18 ASP Graduate Students in new directions. Our interventions in Sheklian, work in the fields of literature Associate Professor of the study of Armenian history, literature, and anthropology respectively. To Iranian History Flap Our Donors / 2017-18 Event Calendar translation studies, and the visual arts further explore the new directions and Culture can be gauged by a carefully curated these two brimming young scholars set of initiatives we have undertaken are undertaking, they are co-organizing Kevork Bardakjian Marie Manoogian Let us know what you think at [email protected]. that will have a long-term impact on two workshops: Maral Aktokmakyan Follow us on Facebook: ASPumichAA. Professor of the field. I am thrilled to announce together with Michael Pifer, Department Armenian Language that this vision has now materialized of Near Eastern Studies, on Armenian and Literature Newsletter Credits Regents of the University of Michigan into a volume entitled An Armenian Literature and Liminality; Christopher Editors: Kathryn Babayan, Michael J. Behm, Grand Blanc Andrew C. Richner, Grosse Pointe Park Mediterranean: Words and Worlds in Sheklian together with Hakem Ronald G. Suny Naira Tumanyan Mark J. Bernstein, Ann Arbor Ron Weiser, Ann Arbor Motion that will be published in the Al-Rustom, Department of History, on William H. Sewell, Jr. Contributor: David Merchant Shauna Ryder Diggs, Grosse Pointe Katherine E. White, Ann Arbor Mediterranean Perspectives Series by Armenian Music. We welcome Maral Distinguished Uni- Design: Irene Ng Denise Ilitch, Bingham Farms Mark S. Schlissel, ex officio Palgrave Macmillan in 2018. I co-edited and Christopher to our ASP community! versity Professor of Andrea Fischer Newman, Ann Arbor this volume with Michael Pifer, our History former Manoogian Graduate Student I hope you will join us in the series Melanie Tanielian The University of Michigan, as an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer, complies with all applicable and 2014-15 Post-Doctoral Fellow. An of lectures and workshops that will Assistant Professor federal and state laws regarding nondiscrimination and affirmative action. The University of Michigan is committed Armenian Mediterranean represents showcase our Manoogian Fellows of History to a policy of equal opportunity for all persons and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, a critical turning point in the study of around this year’s theme of Liminality age, marital status, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, disability, religion, height, weight, Armenians. In its pages, a growing and Memorial Practices. or veteran status in employment, educational programs and activities, and admissions. Inquiries or complaints may cohort of scholars chart new vistas be addressed to the Senior Director for Institutional Equity, and Title IX/Section 504/ADA Coordinator, Office for by recasting the Armenian people as Institutional Equity, 2072 Administrative Services Building, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1432, 734-763-0235, TTY 734-647-1388, [email protected]. For other University of Michigan information call 734-764-1817. significant actors within the context of Mediterranean history, world history, and world literature. Our volume Cover Image: Akhurian/Arpacay river and ruins of ancient bridge of Ani Credit: Vasgen Degirmentas © 1996 [email protected] 2 Armenian Studies Program | Fall 2017 Armenian Studies Program | Fall 2017 3 FACULTY NEWS Ronal Grigor Suny, William H. Sewell, Jr. Distinguished University Professor of History and Professor of Political & UPDATES Science, recently co-authored a book entitled Russia’s Empires (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016). Professor Suny has been busy traveling, giving interviews Kathryn Babayan, Director of the Armenian Studies and delivering lectures on Armenians in the Russian/ Program & Michael Pifer, Lecturer in Armenian Literature Ottoman empires, USSR, Diaspora, Russian empire, at the Department of Near Eastern Studies will publish their revolutions and politics. His new book entitled Red Flag co-edited volume An Armenian Mediterranean: Words Unfurled: Historians, the Russian Revolution, and the and Worlds in Motion (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, Soviet Experience (London and New York: Verso Books, Mediterranean Perspectives, 2018). 2017) was released this November. An Armenian Mediterranean offers a blueprint for an Russia’s Empires explores the long history of Russia, omnivorously comparative, deeply interconnected vision the Soviet Union, and the present Russian Federation of Armenian Studies: one that might serve as a model for through the lens of empire, analyzing how and why other area studies scholars, who must necessarily address Russia expanded to become the largest country on the these broader questions of ‘inclusion’ and ‘exclusion’ globe and how it repeatedly fell under the sway of strong, within different comparative frameworks. In order to raise authoritarian leaders. critical questions from different disciplinary perspectives and historical periods the volume is organized around Reflecting on the fate of the Russian Revolution one five themes: rethinking boundaries, connecting histories, hundred years after October, Red Flag Unfurled: breaking national and imperial paradigms, texturizing Historians, the Russian Revolution, and the Soviet diaspora, and placing statehood. These themes orient Experience explores the historiographical controversies the reader broadly within the current state of Armenian over 1917, Stalinism, and the end of “Communism,” and Studies, but also provide a panoramic, yet highly selective provides an assessment of the achievements, costs, losses glimpse of the Mediterranean through Armenian eyes. and legacies of the choices made by Soviet leaders. The movement of Armenians and Armenian Studies across disciplinary, cultural, and geographic boundaries Tamar Boyadjian, Assistant Professor at Michigan State suggests fresh ways of charting the frontiers beyond them. University and ASP Executive Committee member recently edited a special Absinthe issue, entitled Unscripted: An Armenian Palimpsest. Melanie Tanileian, Assistant Professor of History, has recently published her book, The Charity of War: Famine, This volume is a collection of contemporary Armenian Humanitarian Aid, and World War I in the Middle East texts from living authors chosen as significant works (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2017). which challenge, shape, and complicate conversations on transcultural analysis, and theories and practices related The Charity of War tells how the Ottoman home front to translating. It is a survey of contemporary and active grappled with total war and how it sought to mitigate writers from around the world in Armenian today. This starvation and sickness through relief activities. It special Absinthe issue constitutes a collective corpus of examines the wartime famine’s reverberations throughout writers mostly from the Armenian Diaspora–Lebanon, the community: in Beirut’s municipal institutions, in its Syria, Iran, the United States, France, Sierra Leone–and philanthropic and religious organizations, in international some from the Republic of Armenia. Their translations agencies, and in the homes of the city’s residents. This grant access to an Armenian literary present and past, local history reveals a dynamic politics of provisioning that while at the same time allow others to enter this same was central to civilian experiences in the war, as well as world. This volume imagines texts and translations as to the Middle Eastern political landscape that emerged being weighed against one another as balancing acts of post-war. statements and silences. 4 Armenian Studies Program | Fall 2017 Armenian Studies Program | Fall 2017 5 YEAR IN REVIEW intervention. Active spectatorship continued to that often hinged on voids, lacunas, failures, be advocated in further papers