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Bournoutian Appointed 7th Kazan Visiting Scholar for Spring

Staff Report

Dr. George Bournoutian
Dr. George Bournoutian

Dr. George Bournoutian, Professor of History at Iona College in New York, has been appointed as the seventh Henry Khanzadian Kazan Visiting Professor of Armenian Studies for the Spring 2009 semester.

Dr. Bournoutian is an internationally recognized teacher and scholar, who will be teaching a three-unit course on “The Armenian Diaspora and Genocide.” The course will be offered Monday evenings from 6:00-8:50PM, beginning February 23, and will concentrate on the Armenian experience after the loss of independence and the exile or immigration of Armenians to foreign lands. Special attention will be given to the Diaspora communities in Iran, Russia, Ottoman Empire/Turkey, India, the Arab World, France, Eastern Europe, and the United States. The fate of these communities in the 20th century will be examined in detail.

Dr. Bournoutian will also be presenting three public lectures under the general heading “The Armenian Church Under Foreign Rule: 16th-20th Centuries (Russia, South Asia, and Iran).”

Dr. Bournoutian has extensive teaching experience, having taught Eastern European and Middle Eastern history at Iona College since 1989. He has taught as a visiting professor at Columbia University, New York University, the University of Connecticut (Stamford, Storrs, Hartford), Rutgers University, Tufts University, and Ramapo College. He received his Ph.D. from UCLA with a thesis: Eastern Armenia on the Eve of the Russian Conquest (revised and published in book form in 1982).

Armenian, Persian, and Russian history are the major areas of Dr. Bournoutian’s research interests.

Dr. Bournoutian is the author of seventeen books, and dozens of peer-reviewed articles in journals and encyclopedias, including the Journal for Iranian Studies, Encyclopedia Iranica, and the Journal for the Society for Armenian Studies. His latest books include Tigranes II and Rome (2007), The Travel Accounts of Simeon of Poland (2006), and A Concise History of the Armenian People (revised and enlarged 5th edition) (2006).

Dr. Bournoutian is a member of the Middle East Studies Association, the Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, the Society for Armenian Studies, the Iranian Studies Association, and the Association internationale des études arméniennes.

The course will be open to regularly matriculating student and open to community members as well. Contact the Armenian Studies Program at 559-278-2669 for details.