Hye Sharzhoom Armenian Action
Claire Kasaian
Staff Writer
Dr. Ümit Kurt was appointed as the 15th Kazan Visiting Professor in Armenian Studies for the Fall 2018 semester at Fresno State. Dr. Kurt was previously at Fresno State in the 2015-2016 academic year as a Kazan Research Associate.
As part of his duties this Fall, Dr. Kurt is teaching an Armenian Studies class, “The Armenian Genocide in Comparison,” which he describes as, “the history of the Armenian Genocide and making comparisons between the Genocide, the Holocaust, and the Rwandan Genocide. We will be looking for patterns and tendencies and variations and discrepancies in the Genocides.”
Dr. Kurt was appointed as a prestigious Polonsky Fellow at the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem in 2017, where he is part of a vibrant research community.
Dr. Kurt was born and raised in Aintab, and when asked about how he learned about the Armenian Genocide he stated that, “After high school, while studying at the university, I read certain history books but did not do any elaborate research. When I was 25 years old I was with friends at a coffee shop in Aintab and I then realized that the coffee shop was originally an Armenian-owned house.” This inspired Dr. Kurt to begin his research on the Armenian Genocide, which also led him to also learn more about the once large Armenian community in Aintab. Dr. Kurt said that he realized how ignorant he was about his hometown and how the traces of Armenian presence were erased from Aintab during the Genocide.
Dr. Kurt attended Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts and completed his Ph.D. in 2016 in Holocaust and Genocide Studies in the Department of History. He is now preparing his dissertation for publication as a book. Dr. Kurt has recently published Aintab, 1915: Genocide and Perpetrators, as well as numerous articles and monographs.
Dr. Kurt has written extensively on the Armenian Genocide, the confiscation of Armenian properties, the transfer of wealth, the transformation of space, mass violence, interethnic conflict, local historiography, early modern Turkish nationalism and the Aintab Armenians.
While at Fresno State Dr. Kurt will be presenting three public lectures, before returning to Jerusalem in December.