The Second Feminist Armenian Studies Workshop: Gendering Resistance and Revolution


 Armenian Studies     May 4 2019 - May 5 2019 | 9:00 AM - 4:00 PM UCI Humanities Gateway 1030

The Second Feminist Armenian Studies Workshop – Armenian Women and Gender: Resistance and Revolution

May 4-5, 2019

Co-organized by Houri Berberian (UCI), Lerna Ekmekçioğlu (MIT), and Melissa Bilal

The Second Feminist Armenian Studies Workshop: Gendering Resistance and Revolution, organized by Houri Berberian  (UCI), Melissa Bilal (AUA), and Lerna Ekmekçioğlu (MIT), will convene on Saturday, May 4, and Sunday, May 5, 2019 on the University of California, Irvine campus. The two-day interdisciplinary  workshop/conference – free and open to the public – will feature fifteen participants, four panels, a roundtable, and a public discussion organized by FemARC (Feminist  Armenian Research Collective). Speakers and roundtable participants will  focus on resistance and revolution from gender-centered perspectives. What constitutes activism, resistance, and/or revolution through various modalities? How is resistance gendered? How does resistance by gender-conforming and gender-non-conforming individuals or collectives challenge hegemonic and dominant analytical paradigms? Through an engagement with varied methodologies and  approaches, participants will rethink and reframe women’s activism, (in)visibility, (re)presentation, resistance and revolution in the multilocal Armenian experience from the nineteenth century through the Velvet revolution to today.

Access the program here.

2nd FEMINIST ARMENIAN STUDIES WORKSHOP
GENDERING RESISTANCE and REVOLUTION

4-5 May 2019 – HIB 110, UC Irvine
Organized by Houri Berberian (UCI), Melissa Bilal (AUA), Lerna Ekmekçioğlu (MIT)

~Free and open to all~
The Second Feminist Armenian Studies Workshop: Gendering Resistance and Revolution, organized by Houri Berberian (UCI), Melissa Bilal (AUA), and Lerna Ekmekçioğlu (MIT), will convene on Saturday, May 4, and Sunday, May 5, 2019 on the University of California, Irvine campus. The two-day interdisciplinary workshop/conference – free and open to the public – will feature fifteen participants, four panels, a roundtable, and a public discussion organized by FemARC (Feminist Armenian Research Collective). Speakers and roundtable participants will focus on resistance and revolution from gender-centered perspectives. What constitutes activism, resistance, and/or revolution through various modalities? How is resistance gendered? How does resistance by gender-conforming and gender-non-conforming individuals or collectives challenge hegemonic and dominant analytical paradigms? Through an engagement with varied methodologies and approaches, participants will rethink and reframe women’s activism, (in)visibility, (re)presentation, resistance and revolution in the multilocal Armenian experience from the nineteenth century through the Velvet revolution to today.

MAY 4 – Saturday

Morning reception (9:30-9:55)

(9:55-10:00)- OPENING REMARKS by Houri Berberian

PANEL 1 (10:00-11:30): REDEFINING RESISTANCE AND REVOLUTION FROM AN ARMENIAN FEMINIST PERSPECTIVE
Chair: Arnold Alahverdian
“Hysterical...vague look, pronounced and hooked nose, thin bloodless lips”: Revolution, Resistance, and Recovering Rubina
Houri Berberian, UC Irvine

What was radical about Zabel Asadur?
Melissa Bilal, American University of Armenia

Post-Genocide Mobilization of Armenian Women for their Rights
Lerna Ekmekçioğlu, MIT

PANEL 2 (11:30-1:00): RESISTING INVISIBILITY
Chair: Pauline Pechakjian

From Oblivion to Visibility: In Search of Women's Role During the Armenian Revolutionary Movement and Beyond
Sona Zeitlian, author, educator, activist

Armen Ohanian: Art and Revolution from the Caucasus to Mexico
Vartan Matiossian, Armenian National Education Committee (New York), and Artsvi Bakhchinyan, Institute of History, National Academy of Sciences (Yerevan)

Diana Apcar and Her Network: Efforts to Change the Armenian Situation in Turkey
Meline Mesropyan, Tohoku University

LUNCH - 1:00-2:00

PANEL 3 (2:00-3:30): RESISTANT (RE)PRESENTATIONS
Chair: Sona Tajiryan

White Bodies, Savage Marks:  Medical and Racial Discourses of Armenian Women’s Tattoos
Elyse Semerdjian, Whitman College

Comfortable Ways of Encountering the Other on a Genocidal Land
Nora Tataryan, University of Toronto

Iran’s Armenian Women and the Revolutionary Intentions of Avant-garde Architecture
Talinn Grigor, UC Davis

Break (3:30-4:00)

PANEL 4 (4:00-5:30): WHEN IS ACTIVISM REVOLUTIONARY?
Chair: Jennifer Manoukian

Decentralization: Feminist Methodologies and Marginalizations in the 2018 “Velvet Revolution” 
Tamar Shirinian, Duke University

Armenian Queer Activism: Visibility as Resistance
Rosie Vartyter Aroush, UCLA

MAY 5 – Sunday

Morning reception (10:00-10:30)

ROUNDTABLE/DISCUSSION PANEL 5 (10:30-12:30): FROM VELVET TO ?: WHAT WAS REVOLUTIONARY?
Chair: Houri Berberian

Armenia's Velvet Revolution: From Women's Silent Presence to Public Speaking and Political Activism
Irina Ghaplanyan, First Deputy Minister of Nature Protection (Armenia)

Women Intellectuals and the Revolution: Where are they now?
Anna Harutyunyan, DeepMind (London)

Speaking Truth to Power: Armenian Women’s Activism before and after the Velvet Revolution
Armine Ishkanian, London School of Economics

Resistance in Many Forms
Shakeh Kaftarian, Kaftarian and Associates

Wearing the Velvet: Women, People Power, and the Parliament
Anna Ohanyan, Stonehill College

LUNCH - 12:30-1:30

PANEL 5 (1:30-3:30): Public Discussion by FemARC (Feminist Armenian Research Collective) led by Lerna Ekmekçioğlu & Melissa Bilal

RECEPTION – 4:00-6:00

Sponsors:
Meghrouni Family Presidential Chair in Armenian Studies
Vahe and Armine Meghrouni Lecture Series

Co-sponsors:
Department of History
National Association for Armenian Studies and Research