News

Staff Report A co-edited volume by Bedross Der Matossian and Barlow Der Mugrdechian entitled Western Armenian in the 21st Century: Challenges and New Approaches has been recently published by The Press at California State University, Fresno (2019). The book is the first in the newly launched Society for Armenian Studies (SAS) Publication Series published as part of the Armenian Series ...

Christine Pambukyan Staff Writer The Armenian language has been spoken for more than 3,000 years. Armenians, however, were not able to read and write with their own alphabet until a priest, St. Mesrop Mashtots, created a thirty-six-letter alphabet in 406 AD. In the twelfth century, two letters were added to the alphabet to accommodate new sounds introduced to the Armenian ...

Staff Report Armenian Studies Program Coordinator Prof. Barlow Der Mugrdechian announced that the Thomas A. Kooyumjian Family Foundation has made a donation of $100,000 in January of 2019 to the Kooyumjian Endowed Scholarship Fund at Fresno State. Together with previous donations from the Family Foundation, the Endowed Scholarship has reached $250,000. Thomas A. Kooyumjian passed away in 1985 and his ...

Staff Report Armenian Studies Program Coordinator Prof. Barlow Der Mugrdechian announced that the Leon S. Peters Foundation has continued their generous support of the Armenian Studies Program with a grant of $30,000 for 2019. Their support for the Program over the past seven years has reached over $200,000.  This continues the tradition of the Peters Foundation in supporting the Armenian ...

Arshak Abelyan Staff Writer              From the violent streets of Beirut to the places he called his home, Armenia and Fresno, Paul Chaderjian’s new novel Letters to Barbra reveals the beauty and tragedy in life. Chaderjian’s grandparents were Armenian Genocide survivors who settled in Beirut and thus, he experienced the Civil War in Lebanon. Chaderjian discussed his new novel at a ...

Staff Report The world has changed substantially in the past forty years. In 1979 Armenia was still part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Jimmy Carter was President of the United States. Iranian militants seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and held hostages. Mother Teresa won the Nobel Peace Prize. The Pittsburgh Steelers won the Super Bowl. The Academy ...

  Dustin Vartanian Staff Writer It was William Saroyan’s wish that his home in Fresno would one day be turned into a research center. Thirty-seven years after his passing his wish was realized. Saroyan’s home for the last 17 years of his life became the first Museum and Research Center in the world dedicated to him. The process to convert ...

Annie Rubio Editor Music is a universal language, with messages and emotions that can be understood regardless of one’s background. Modern artists are always seeking new ways to push the boundaries of their craft, to continuously innovate. Armenian jazz pianist Tigran Hamasyan artfully melds modern and traditional sounds into his music and he also ties in many elements from the ...

Annie Rubio Editor Behind every genocide are perpetrators, ones who promote and contribute to the acts of mass violence. However, a majority of these perpetrators are not top military officials, but rather the mass population who idly stands by. This has become a focus of Kazan Visiting Professor Dr. Ümit Kurt’s research: how such “ordinary” people can become involved in ...

Annie Rubio Editor Few people would stop to stare at a pile of rocks scattered across a field. Even fewer would be able to distinguish that a historic monastery used to exist there. Scottish explorer Steven Sim has spent nearly 40 years doing just that. From his days as an architecture student, he made the startling discovery that many of ...