EVENT DETAILS

Armenian Identity Through the Ages: A Two-Day International Conference in Armenian Studies

Armenian Identity Through the Ages: An International Conference in Armenian Studies
Supported by The Vahe & Armine Meghrouni Lecture Series
and the School of Humanities

Full conference schedule

Monday, April 6 - Tuesday, April 7, 2015
Day 1: 10:00 AM - 5:00 PM | Day 2: 10:00 AM -3:00 PM

The purpose of this conference is to explore Armenian identity from the remote past to the present. This conference will touch upon issues that have faced the Armenians and how they have affected Armenian identity through the ages - how a small kingdom and people have been able to keep their cultural independence and survive. Armenian identity has gone through many changes, and our discussions will touch upon not only elements of continuity, but also rupture.

The papers from the conference will be edited by Touraj Daryaee and published by Mazda Publishers, an academic publisher since the 1980s which deals with the Armenian and Iranian world. The scheduled publication is in 2016.

Funding for the conference was provided by the generous support of the community, including:
Vahe and Armine Meghrouni, Garo and Salpi Agopian, Charles and Mona Barsam, Alishan and Lydia Halebian,
Vahag Hambarsumian and Seda Yaghoubian, Garbis and Zovak Karamardian, Krikor and Vehan Mahdessian, Viken and Arpi Melkonian, George and Hasmik Mooradian, Arek and Hanriette Tatevossian, Garo and Sylvie Tertzakian, Serge and Mona Tomassian, Armenian General Benevolent Union, Orange County Armenian Professional Society


CONFERENCE SCHEDULE

Monday, April 6, 2015
10:00 AM
Opening remarks - Touraj Daryaee, Howard C. Baskerville Professor in the History of Iran & the Persianate World

Dean’s Welcome - Georges Van Den Abbeele, Dean, UCI School of Humanities


PANEL I: Ancient Armenia
10:15 AM - 12:15 PM
Chair: Roman Smbatyan
Touraj Daryaee, UCI: Urarshtu and Armina: Two Narratives through the Behistun Inscription
Giusto Traina, Sorbonne: “Ethnicity and Dynasticity: identity in pre-Christian Armenia”
Ani Honarchian, UCLA: “And Moses became hayakhos: Literacy and Orality in Late Antique Armenia”
Gregory Areshian, UCLA: “Transformations of Armenian Identity from Late Antiquity to the Modern Age: A Contextualized Analysis”

Lunch Break
12:15 PM -1:30 PM

Panel II: Medieval Armenia
1:30 PM - 3:00 PM
Chair: Levon Petrosyan
Tamar Boyadjian, Michigan State:“Idem et oƥer: Intersecting Representations of Armenians in Medieval Literature”
Khodadad Rezakhani, Free University Berlin: “From Shamiran to Arran: Caspian and Armenian Identities in the Early Islamic Period”
Robert Hewsen: TBA

Coffee Break
3:00 PM -3:30 PM

KEYNOTE ADDRESS
3:30 PM - 4:30 PM
Sebouh Aslanian, UCLA:
“A Life Lived Across Continents: A Global Microhistory of Marcara Avachintz, the
First Director of Colbert’s Compagnie des Indes Orientales, 1666-1688”



Tuesday, April 7, 2015
Panel III: Early Modern Armenia
10:00 AM -11:30 AM
Chair: Touraj Daryaee
Peter Cowe, UCLA: "Armenia in the 16th Century: Dark Age or Era of Transition?"
Edmund Herzig, Oxford University: “Go-betweens or In-Betweens?: Questions of Trade and Identity among Early Modern Armenian Merchants”
Roman Smbatyan, UCI: "Some remarks on the identity of Meliks of Artsakh (Karabagh) in 17-18 centuries AD"

Lunch Break
11:30 AM - 12:30 PM

PANEL IV: Modern Armenia
12:30 PM-2:40 PM
Chair: Sebouh Aslanian
Houri Berberian, CSULB: “Fin de Siècle Time-Space Compression, Armenian Identity, and Revolutionary Caucasus”
Shushan Karapetian, UCLA: "The Evolving Role of Language in the Construction of Armenian Identity in the Diaspora"
Myrna Douzjian, UCLA & CSU Fresno: "Transnational Identities in Atom Egoyan’s Ararat."
Rubina Peroomian, UCLA: “Effects of the Genocide, second generation voices.”

Concluding remarks