Experts and scholars from four corners of the world were joined by hundreds of
community members on Saturday April 27, 2013 at the University of Southern California’s
Davidson Conference Center for a one-day academic conference called
“Independence and Beyond: In Search of a New Armenian Diaspora after 1991,”
which tackled critical issues facing Diaspora-homeland relations.
The conference was organized by the Armenian Revolutionary Federation Western
US Central Committee in collaboration with the USC Institute of Armenian
Studies, the Armenian Cultural Foundation and the Armenian Review.
"Asbarez," April 29, 2013
Through its various presentations and discussions, the conference examined
the impact of the independence of the Republic of Armenia and subsequent
processes of nation-building on various facets of Diaspora life, such as
political ideologies and cultural narratives, linguistic and literary
production, organizations and institutions, economic investment, remittances and
affiliation, and hybrid identity formation.
The four thematic panels featured leading scholars of Armenian, Diaspora, and
Transnational Studies. Using their expertise in fields that range from political
science and history to literature and journalism, the conference participants
charted new frameworks and definitions in conceptualizing “Diaspora” in the
Armenian context.
Dr. Talar Chahinian of the ARF Western US Central Committee and Dr. Richard
Dekmejian of the USC Institute of Armenian Studies presented welcoming remarks,
in which they outlined the mission and purpose of the conference.
The first panel, entitled “Revisions of the Narrative of Return,” was chaired
by Dr. Houri Berberian of the California State University at Long Beach. Dr.
Sossie Kasbarian of the University of Lancaster in the United Kingdom discussed
“Return to Homeland: Challenging Concepts and Realities,” while Dr. Chahinian of
CSULB made a presentation titled “The Real, the Imagined and the In-Between:
Homeland Revisited.” Dr. Viken Yacoubian of Woodbury University rounded out the
session with a presentation entitled “Convergence through Diversity: The
Diasporic Experience of Ethnoracial Identity Development.”
The second panel, “Cultural Narratives: Subjectivity and Language in the
Evolving Diaspora,” was conducted entirely in Armenian and was chaired by Dr.
Anahid Keshishian of UCLA. The panel featured professors Hagop Gulludjian of
UCLA and Marc Nichanian of Sabanci University in Istanbul. Gulludjian
discussed “The Illusion of Survival: Whose Survival? What For?” and Nichanian
answered the question “Subject or Sovereign?” A third presentation, “Endangered
vs. Enforced Identity,” which was to have been presented by Father Levon Zekiyan
of Universita Ca’ Foscari of Venice, Italy, was instead read by Dr. Myrna
Douzjian, as Father Zekiyan was unable to attend the conference due to an
accident.
“Online Space and the Politics of Information Exchange” was the third panel
moderated by Dr. Hayg Oshagan of Wayne State University. Experts from the fields
of information technology and journalism discussed the evolvement of the
Diaspora in the information age. The panel featured Asbarez English Editor Ara
Khachatourian, Armenian Weekly Assistant Editor Nanore Barsoumian, the
proprietor of the Ianyan blog Liana Aghajanian, and the director of the Groong
news aggregator site Asbed Bedrossian of USC.
The conference concluded with a tour-de-force panel entitled “(Re)Defining
Diaspora and Nationalism” moderated by Dr. Khachig Tololyan of Wesleyan
University. This panel featured Dr. Asbed Kotchikian, the editor of The Armenian
Review and professor at Bentley University in Waltham, Mass; Dr. Razmik
Panossian, the director of the Armenian Communities Department of the Calouste
Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon; Dr. Stephan Astourian of the University of
California Berkley; and Dr. Simon Payaslian of Boston University.
Each session saw the active participation of conference attendees through
thought-provoking questions and discussion.
"Asbarez," April 29, 2013
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