News

Dustin Vartanian Staff Writer “There remained no legal document that defines the Patriarch and specifies the rights and responsibilities of the Patriarch and also specifying the rules of Patriarchal elections. This would become problematic in future elections for the Patriarch of Istanbul. When elections get complicated, there are no set processes and the Turkish government exerts great influence,” stated guest ...

Staff Report Armenian Studies Program Director Prof. Barlow Der Mugrdechian announced the publication of Dr. Vahram Shemmassian’s The Armenians of Musa Dagh: From Obscurity to Genocide Resistance and Fame 1840-1915, Volume 11 in the Armenian Series of The Press at California State University, Fresno. The Armenians of Musa Dagh is a comprehensive history of the people of Musa Dagh, who ...

Christine Pambukyan Staff Writer On Friday, October 2 and Saturday, October 3, 2020, six scholars participated in an international conference organized by Professor Barlow Der Mugrdechian and Dr. Ümit Kurt, titled “The State of the Art of the Early Turkish Republic Period: Historiography, Sources, and Future Directions.” Those who were interested were able to register online in advance for access ...

Dustin Vartanian Staff Writer The roots of the tree stretch far down beneath the earth. An abundance of vividly red pomegranates lay within the branches. The immense peaks of Ararat are visible in the backdrop. This is an image of Armenian strength and homeland. These images are displayed on the T-shirts the Armenian Students Organization created and sold to support ...

Staff Report Armenian Studies Program Coordinator Prof. Barlow Der Mugrdechian announced that the Leon S. Peters Foundation has made a generous donation of $30,000 to the Armenian Studies Program at Fresno State for 2021. The Peters Foundation has donated over $240,000 to the Program since 2013. Leon S. Peters was respected as a businessman, civic leader, and philanthropist who lived ...

Staff Report Fresno State President Dr. Joseph Castro convened a meeting of the President’s Armenian Advisory Council in September. Members heard reports from President Castro, Interim Dean of the College of Arts & Humanities, Dr. Honora Chapman, from Prof. Barlow Der Mugrdechian, and from Interim Associate Dean Dr. Sergio La Porta. Members of the Council had an active discussion on ...

Dr. Ohannes Kılıçdağı Special to Hye Sharzhoom Armenians who survived the Genocide and continued to live in Turkey have not attracted much attention from diaspora communities until recently. Only in the last decade or so have some young academics such as Hrag Papazian and Christopher Sheklian conducted some research on the Armenian community of Turkey. The reasons for this neglect ...

Dustin Vartanian President What would you like to accomplish as an officer? I want our members to feel how I did when I first got involved in ASO. When I first got involved, I established a great group of friends and I always looked forward to every event we had. My goal is to make everyone feel as welcomed as ...

  Carina Tokatian Staff Writer “The ghosts, the people from our Armenian past, the things they endured, the unprecedented suffering and losses they bore, as well as their will to overcome—all of that shaped our outlook and our lives” stated Jack Chavoor, a May 2020 graduate of Fresno State’s MFA Creative Writing Program. Since the very beginning of his thesis, ...

Staff Report We digitized, now what? To answer that question, the Armenian Studies Program (ASP) was recently awarded a grant from California Revealed, a California State Library initiative, which will facilitate making the Program’s digitized collection of local Armenian-American music available online to the public. The grant supports processing and cataloging the materials collected during the public memory event, “Armenian-American ...