News

Staff Report A delegation of Yerevan State University (YSU) administrators and faculty, headed by YSU President Dr. Hovhannes Hovhannisyan, visited the Fresno State campus on Wednesday, February 2. Accompanying Dr. Hovhannisyan were Dr. Alexander Markarov, Head of the International Cooperation Office of YSU and Dr. Vahagn Aglyan, Director of the American Studies Center at YSU. The group was hosted at ...

Staff Report The Armenian Studies Program at Fresno State has a long and distinguished history. Armenian and Armenian Studies courses have been taught at Fresno State for more than fifty years. The Program was established in 1977 and over the years the has developed an international reputation in terms of excellence in teaching, quality of scholarship, and active student and ...

Sosse Baloian Staff Writer “We know about our identity from reading the stories of our writers,” said Professor Barlow Der Mugrdechian. “Without that literature and history, it would be difficult to understand Armenian identity.” On Sunday, January 16, 2022, Prof. Der Mugrdechian gave a talk on “Armenian Literature and Identity” at St. Apkar Armenian Apostolic Church in Scottsdale, Arizona. Prof. ...

Eddy Thurber Staff Writer The International Court of Justice (ICJ) rules against Azerbaijan on all counts! Armenia won a landmark victory in a hearing brought before the ICJ on the basis of urgency and the need for immediate relief. The court made three orders to secure the safety of Armenian prisoners of war, the cessation of hate speech and violence ...

Staff Report Treasures of Faith : Sacred Relics and Artifacts from the Armenian Orthodox Churches of Istanbul Co-authored with Marlene Breu (2015)   Ronald Thomas Marchese, 74, of Forest Lake, formerly of Duluth, MN and Fresno, CA, after an unexpected cancer diagnosis passed away peacefully on Sunday, October 3, 2021 after spending his last day with his son and daughter ...

Violeta Agabekyan Recreation Administration Minor in Armenian Studies   What encouraged you to take an Armenian Studies course? My strong interest in my culture encouraged me. I wanted to learn more about the Armenian culture, and in doing so I learned about the history of Armenia, the meaning of being Armenian, and the importance of keeping my culture alive. What ...

Staff Report The Zvartnots Cultural Committee of the Western Diocese of the Armenian Church marked its 10th Anniversary Celebration with a cultural program on Sunday, November 7, 2021, at the St. Gregory Armenian Apostolic Church, in Pasadena. The keynote speaker for the evening was Prof. Barlow Der Mugrdechian, Berberian Coordinator of the Armenian Studies Program at Fresno State. Zvartnots Cultural ...

Andrew Hagopian Editor As I sat in Dr. Amila Becirbegovic’s Humanities 120 “Genocide, Memory, Media” class at Fresno State, there was a familiarity about the topic which was being taught. The more I listened to what the professor had to say and what my peers said in response, the more I appreciated the importance of the class. The Armenian Genocide ...

Arshak Abelyan Staff Writer “The base motives of their former neighbors, unfortunately, left some of the most indelible wounds, which more than a century later remain unhealed,” said Dr. Ümit Kurt when dis-cussing the economic motives behind the Armenian Genocide. Dr. Kurt, a historian who studies the late Ottoman Empire, has a particular focus on the transformations of imperial structures ...

Sosse Baloian Staff Writer As a student taking Kazan Visiting Professor Suren Manukyan’s “Introduction to Genocide Studies” course, I was tasked with researching and presenting an aspect within the topic of Genocide. Each student in the course was asked to present on a topic related to the Genocide. Among those topics were “Genocide Denial,” “Methods of Extermination During the Genocide,” ...