Hye Sharzhoom Armenian Action
Staff Report
Dr. Bedross Der Matossian, Dr. Lerna Ekmekcioglu, Prof.
Barlow Der Mugrdechian, Dr. Sergio La Porta, Dr. Talar Chahinian,
and Dr. Ramela Abbamontian participating in the SAS
sponsored “Impact of the Armenian Genocide” Conference.
Photo: ASP Archive
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 Conference and Meeting were held in conjunction with the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) Annual Meeting, which brings hundreds of scholars in a variety of disciplines together to present papers and to participate in panels.
The SAS organized conference on “The Impact of the Armenian Genocide” began at 10:00AM with opening remarks by SAS President Barlow Der Mugrdechian, who welcomed the participants and also local Denver Armenians.
SAS Vice-President Bedross Der Matossian chaired the first panel on “The Impact on Society,” where three participants presented papers: Lerna Ekmekcioglu (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), “When History Became Destiny: Armenians in Post-Genocide Turkey”; Sossie Kasbarian (University of Lancaster, United Kingdom), “The Politics of Memory and Activism: The Armenian Diaspora Facing 2015”; and Hratch Tchilingirian (University of Oxford), “Armenians in Turkey: The Impact of post-Genocide Isolation and (dis)Integration.”
Photo: ASP Archive
In the second panel on “The Impact on Culture,” chaired by SAS Treasurer Sergio La Porta, the participants were: Talar Chahinian (California State University, Long Beach), “Post-1915 Dispersion Literature and the Figure of the Failed Witness”; Barlow Der Mugrdechian (California State University, Fresno), “The Theme of Genocide in Armenian-American Literature”; and Ramela Abbamontian (Los Angeles Pierce College), “The Diasporic Witness: Reconstruction of Testimony by Contemporary Los Angeles Artists.”
The SAS is administered by an Executive Council: President, Barlow Der Mugrdechian; Vice-President, Bedross Der Matossian (University of Nebraska-Lincoln); Secretary, Lilit Keshishyan (UCLA); Treasurer, Sergio La Porta (California State University, Fresno); and advisors Tamar Boyadjian (Michigan State University); and Marc Mamigonian (NAASR).
The SAS is headquartered at the Armenian Studies Program at California State University, Fresno and its website is at societyforarmenianstudies.com. The SAS can be reached by email at barlowd@csufresno.edu.