Dr. Vartan Matiossian among winners of NAASR 2023 Dr. Sona Aronian Armenian Studies Book Prizes

The National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR) is pleased to announce the 2023 Dr. Sona Aronian Book Prizes for Excellence in Armenian Studies, jointly awarded to Dr. Vartan Matiossian for The Politics of Naming the Armenian Genocide: Language, History and ‘Medz Yeghern’ (I. B. Tauris, 2022), Dr. Henry Shapiro for The Rise of the Western Armenian Diaspora in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire (Edinburgh University Press, 2022) and to Dr. Gohar Muradyan for the English-language translation Ancient Greek Myths in Medieval Armenian Literature (Brill, 2022), a translation of Հին յունական առասպելների արձագանգները հայ միջնադարեան մատենագրութեան մէջ (2014). The 2023 awards are for books with a 2022 publication date.

NAASR Announces Winners of 2020 Sona Aronian Armenian Studies Book Prizes

The National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR) is pleased to announce the winners of the 2020 Dr. Sona Aronian Book Prizes for Excellence in Armenian Studies: Prof. Houri Berberian for the monograph Roving Revolutionaries: Armenians and the Connected Revolutions in the Russian, Iranian, and Ottoman Worlds (University of California Press) and Dr. Lou Ann Matossian, Dr. Vartan Matiossian, and the late Aris Sevag for the translation of Bedros Keljik’s Armenian-American Sketches (The Armenian Studies Series of the Press at California State University, Fresno). The 2020 awards are for books with a 2019 publication date.

Panel on “Bilingualism: Challenges and Benefits of Learning and Living in Multiple Worlds” at Harvard

A panel discussion entitled “Bilingualism: Challenges and Benefits of Learning and Living in Multiple Worlds,” on Thursday, March 5, 2020, at 7:30 p.m. at Harvard University, Science Center, Auditorium A, 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA.

This program is presented by the NAASR/Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation Lecture Series on Contemporary Armenian Issues and is co-sponsored by St. Stephen’s Armenian Elementary School and the Harvard Armenian Student Association. It is free and open to the public.

NAASR’s Mardigian Library Receives Rare Guerguerian Archives

The National Association for Armenian Studies and Research has received one of the most significant archives of documents relating to the Armenian Genocide—the archive collected by the late Fr. Krikor Guerguerian—for research and study in NAASR’s Mardigian Library. These materials are considered “priceless” by noted scholar Prof. Taner Akçam, who relied on them heavily for his book “Killing Orders: Talat Pasha’s Telegrams and the Armenian Genocide” (Palgrave, 2018). Akçam holds the Robert Aram and Marianne Kaloosdian and Stephen and Marian Mugar Chair in Armenian Genocide Studies at Clark’s Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies.
Among the important items in the Guerguerian archive are photographic copies of numerous official Ottoman telegrams which were used in the 1919-20 Military Tribunals but had since vanished, including one from Behaeddin Shakir, one of the founders of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), inquiring about details from the field on the deportations and killings of Armenians. Akçam considers this document as a clear expression of the CUP leadership’s genocidal intentions. The archive also contains photographic images of the now lost “Memoir of Naim Bey” published by Aram Andonian around 1920.

Celebration of 400 Years of Armenian-American Heritage, 1618-2018

Stefan Ihrig and Abraham Terian Receive NAASR’s Aronian Armenian Studies Book Prizes

The National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR) announced on December 14 that Dr. Stefan Ihrig and Dr. Abraham Terian have been awarded the 2017 Dr. Sona Aronian Book Prizes for Excellence in Armenian Studies.

NAASR’s Aronian Book Prizes were established in 2014 by the late Dr. Aronian and Dr. Geoffrey Gibbs to be awarded annually to an outstanding scholarly works in the English language in the field of Armenian Studies and translations from Armenian into English.  The 2017 awards are for books published in the year 2016.

Scholar Erna Shirinian Delves into Armenian-Greek and Armenian-Byzantine Relations

Aram Arkun

Normally Dr. Erna Manea Shirinian spends the first half of her workday as a full professor of history at Yerevan State University and then goes in the afternoon to Yerevan’s Mesrop Mashtots Institute of Ancient Manuscripts (“Matenadaran”), where she is head of the department concerned with researching and editing ancient Armenian texts. Fortunately for the Mirror, she was in Boston a few months ago, during the spring, and spoke a little about the state of scholarly affairs in Armenia as well as a conference she was organizing on Tayk.

Born in Akhalkalak, Georgia, Dr. Shirinian began her education in Armenia. Her father did not want her to leave the country, but as a good student, she was sent by her teacher to Russia to learn classical literature and translation. Most of the other students did not continue in academia. When she returned, she was told she could go to specialize in Byzantine Studies in Moscow.

NAASR to Transform its Headquarters Into a Global Center

The National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR) will be undertaking a $2.5 million, top-to-bottom renovation of its aging building in Belmont, Massachussetts, to transform it into a welcoming hub for scholars and Armenians and non-Armenians alike, as NAASR meets the challenges of best serving its mission in the future.  Since purchase in 1989, the NAASR headquarters building has served as a place where erudite scholars of Armenian Studies have come for support and research in NAASR’s unique library holdings, and for connection with members and the public over lectures and symposia. NAASR’s Mardigian Library has grown to become world-class as one of the top five libraries open to the public in the diaspora while its building has remained virtually unchanged and is in drastic need of repair.

NAASR Announces First Winners of Aronian Armenian Studies Book Prizes

The National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR) recently announced the winners of the first Dr. Sona Aronian Book Prizes for Excellence in Armenian Studies. Aronian, who passed away on Nov. 17, 2015, established the prizes last year, to be awarded annually to an outstanding scholarly monograph in the English language in the field of Armenian studies and, in alternating years, to a translation from Armenian into English of a work of literature or of an academic book within the field of Armenian studies.

Two Book Awards for Armenian Studies

Dr. Sona Aronian Book Prizes for Excellence in Armenian Studies (NAASR)

The National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR) recently announced the creation of the Dr. Sona Aronian Book Prizes for Excellence in Armenian Studies. The prizes will be awarded annually to an outstanding scholarly monograph in the English language in the field of Armenian studies and, in alternating years, to a translation from Armenian into English of a work of literature or of an academic book within the field of Armenian studies.

Outfront Media Pulling All Billboards for Armenian Genocide Denial Website

Chris Sweeney

Last month, The Boston Globe’s editorial board delivered a 366-word piece calling on the U.S. government to officially recognize the Armenian Genocide. The article, published in print on April 24, notes that 100 years ago to the day, “Armenian intellectuals and public figures were detained and summarily executed in Constantinople—the beginning of the systematic purge of the Armenian population at the hands of the Ottoman government. By 1917, 1.5 million Armenians were murdered.”

The Varieties of Denialism

Massimo Pigliacci

 

I have just come back from a stimulating conference at Clark University about “Manufacturing Denial,” which brought together scholars from wildly divergent disciplines — from genocide studies to political science to philosophy — to explore the idea that “denialism” may be a sufficiently coherent phenomenon underlying the willful disregard of factual evidence by ideologically motivated groups or individuals.(*)

Vartan Matiossian to Speak on Previously Unknown Participant in Operation Nemesis

Dr. Vartan Matiossian will give a lecture entitled “Code Name Haiko: Discovering the Last Unknown Participant in Talaat Pasha’s Liquidation,” on Thursday, June 5, 2014, at 7:30 p.m., at the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR) Center, 395 Concord Ave., Belmont, MA.

Let's Honor Manoog Young by Continuing His Quest

Marc A. Mamigonian

 

The founding chairman of the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR), Manoog S. Young, passed away July 3, 2012, a few months shy of his 95th birthday. He is mourned by his family and friends, recognizing that Manoog lived a productive, long life. He was a founder and the long-serving (1955-2001) board chairman of the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR).  

On Thursday, October 4, at 7:30 p.m., two days shy of what would have been Manoog's 95th birthday, NAASR will welcome all who wish to gather to remember and honor Manoog Young's life and work. We hope that the Armenian community will come and join with us in looking back, remembering and honoring a man who worked tirelessly towards worthy goals. In addition, a fund has been established in his name - because no one understood better than Manoog that nothing gets done without money. We hope that those who value the importance of Armenian Studies will give in order to make possible the continuation of that work - work that is never finished.

More Than Books: NAASR Brings Community Together in Quest for Armenian Studies

Aram Arkun

BELMONT, Mass. — Many people know the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR), based in this suburb of Boston, as a bookstore specializing in English language works on Armenians and Armenian studies, but it actually conducts a much broader range of work in support of Armenian studies.