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The California State University, Fresno Armenian Studies Program cordially invites you to An International Conference “Empire, Politics, and War: The Armenian Genocide within the Context of the Ottoman Empire” Friday, March 18, 2016 • Saturday, March 19, 2016 Opening Reception Friday, March 18-6:30PM-7:30PM   Session I-Friday, March 18, 2016 • 7:30PM University Business Center, Room 191 Auditorium, Fresno State   ...

Lucie Ekezyan Staff Writer With a mission to enrich students with communication skills, humanistic values, and cultural awareness, Fresno State’s largest academic unit, the College of Arts and Humanities began a new chapter when a new Dean, Dr. Saúl Jiménez-Sandoval, was appointed in January of this year. Dr. Jiménez-Sandoval plans to “establish new initiatives, new areas of collaboration with other ...

Aramayis Orkusyan Editor “Two men lie dead in a suburban living room, two women are on the run from police, and a marriage is ripping apart at the seams.” This is the chilling synopsis of Chris Bohjalian’s newly published novel The Guest Room, which Bohjalian presented to a Fresno State audience on January 8, 2016. Bohjalian is the New York ...

Lucie Ekezyan Staff Writer Dr. Roberta Ervine was appointed as the 12th Kazan Visiting Professor of Armenian Studies at Fresno State for the Spring 2016 semester. She will teach a course, Armenian Studies 120T, entitled “Great Tragedies and Great Ideas: Learned Armenians and the Genocide.” Dr. Ervine’s course will examine the intellectual history of Armenians and the responses of Armenian ...

Katrina Bissett Staff Writer Accomplished pianist and scholar Şahan Arzruni brought his love for the music of Komitas to a Fresno State audience on Sunday, October 25, 2015. A special event in the Philip Lorenz Memorial Keyboard Concert Series, the performance, titled “Komitas: A Portrait of the Musician as a Young Priest,” was a cultural treasure and was cosponsored by ...

Staff Report To mark the 100th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, the Society for Armenian Studies (SAS) held an international conference, “The Impact of the Armenian Genocide,” on Saturday, November 21, 2015, in Denver, Colorado. The SAS is the international association of Armenian Studies scholars and teachers and held its 41st Annual Meeting on the same day in Denver. The ...

Staff Report Armenian Studies Program Coordinator Prof. Barlow Der Mugrdechian announced a gift of more than $97,000 from the estate of the late Anne Elizabeth Elbrecht of Davis, California, that will establish the Elbrecht Endowment in Armenian Studies. Anne Elizabeth Elbrecht passed away on September 24, 2014. After completing a degree in library science at UC Berkeley, she joined the ...

Aramayis Orkusyan Editor “2015 was a year of groundbreaking curatorial undertakings of Armenian art and marked a paradigm shift in the way contemporary Armenian art is conceptualized and exhibited globally,” stated Neery Melkonian, a New York-based independent researcher, writer, curator, and lecturer in modern and contemporary art. She discussed these shifts in her lecture, titled “What Comes After Undoing Denial: ...

Katrina Bissett Staff Writer “All the stars were against Armenia to survive,” stated screenwriter Mardik Martin. But Armenians did survive, and they are now telling their story. Armenian-themed films are beginning to gain popularity, and Fresno has now hosted the screening of two such films this year. A special screening of The Cut, an independent film centered on the life ...

Aramayis Orkusyan Editor There was standing room only in the Peters Educational Center Auditorium on Friday, August 28, as more than 300 Armenians and non-Armenians came to watch the special sneak preview screening of the film Aram, Aram. Co-sponsored by the Armenian Studies Program, the screening of Aram, Aram was part of the Fresno State CineCulture Fall 2016 film lineup. ...