MARCH 11 & 12, 2022
IN-PERSON AND VIRTUAL
Forty years ago the Manoogian Foundation, then headed by Detroit entrepreneur Alex Manoogian, had the foresight to fund a chair in Modern Armenian History at the University of Michigan. Its first chairholder and the founder of the Armenian Studies Program was historian Ronald Grigor Suny. In its first years the aims of the program were modest: to encourage the study of the Armenian past, its present condition, the life of the diaspora, and the centuries-old culture of Armenians. Courses were taught, festivals organized, and the program grew. Subsequent chairholders – anthropologist Stephanie Platz, historian Gerard Libaridian, and currently anthropologist Hakem Al-Rustom – were joined by literary historian Kevork Bardakjian, holder of the Marie Manoogian Chair in Armenian Language and Literature, eventually creating under directors Kathryn Babayan and Melanie Tanielian a Center for Armenian Studies (CAS). Graduates of the program and center have gone on to fill academic positions in major universities, and those taking courses have expanded the community's knowledge of and commitment to Armenian life. From the initial inspiration of Alex Manoogian, assisted and encouraged by literary critic Edmond Azadian, Michigan graduate Alice Haidostian, and dean of pharmacy Ara Paul, Armenian Studies at the University of Michigan has grown into the premier program exploring the heritage of Armenians in our time.
MARCH 11, 2022 - ARMENIAN TRANSFORMATIONS, 1981-2021: HOW FORTY YEARS OF MICHIGAN ARMENIAN STUDIES LOOKED AT IMPERIAL COLLAPSE, ETHNIC WAR, AND THE REBIRTH OF INDEPENDENCE
Hussey Room, 2nd Floor, Michigan League
911 North University Avenue
Ann Arbor, MI 48109 United States
Or participate virtually by registering in advance for the webinar.
From the creation of the Alex Manoogian Chair in Modern Armenian History in 1981 to the catastrophic defeat of the Armenian Republic in the second Nagorno-Karabakh war, scholars at the University of Michigan have been in the vanguard of examining and attempting to understand the experiences of Armenians in modern times. When the chair was established, Armenia was a small Soviet republic, and half of the world's Armenians lived in scattered diasporic communities. Within a decade the Soviet empire had disintegrated, and Armenia became an independent state beset by hostile neighbors. The republic survived despite losses of population and economic distress. A thriving civil society defied the rule of oligarchs and self-serving politicians, and in 2018 crowds marched to the capital to make a democratic revolution. Just as they rebounded from genocide more than 100 years ago, Armenians once again must deal with loss and find a path to renewal.
Examining the recent past of Armenians in the homeland and in the diaspora, three Manoogian chairholders – Ronald Grigor Suny, Gerard Libaridian, and Hakem Al-Rustom – will present short talks on the turbulent events of the last four decades.
"Armenian Transformations, 1981-2021" Program
March 11, 2022
5:30 - 7:30 PM
Melanie Tanielian, Associate Professor of History & International Studies; Director, Center for Armenian Studies, University of Michigan
Kathryn Babayan, Professor of Iranian History and Culture, University of Michigan
Kevork Bardakjian, Professor Emeritus of Armenian Languages and Literatures, University of Michigan
"A Republic, If You Can Keep It"
Gerard Libaridian, Professor Emeritus; former Alex Manoogian Professor in Modern Armenian History (2001-12), University of Michigan
"The Making of Modern Armenia: From Soviet Republic to Precarious Present"
Ronald Grigor Suny, William H. Sewell Jr Distinguished University Professor of History; former Alex Manoogian Professor in Modern Armenian History (1981-97), University of Michigan
"Living in the Future of the Armenian Catastrophe"
Hakem Al-Rustom, Alex Manoogian Professor of Modern Armenian History, University of Michigan
The evening will conclude with a musical offering by award-winning flutist, artistic director, and author Sato Moughalian and pianist and composer Thomas Jennings. The program includes arrangements of pieces by composer and ethnomusicologist Grikor Mirzaian Suni (1876-1939), grandfather of Ronald Grigor Suny.
Cosponsored by:
Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies
Jarvis & Constance Family Foundation's Danièle Doctorow Prize
Perspectives Ensemble
Weiser Center for Europe and Eurasia
MARCH 12, 2022 - A HIT PARADE OF HISTORICAL TURNS: FROM A RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE
Room 1010, Weiser Hall
500 Church Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Or participate virtually by registering in advance for the webinar.
Over the last fifty years, the historical profession has undergone a profound transformation. Animated by political changes and new theories from outside the discipline, historians have repeatedly broadened the scope of their inquiries and “turned” to culture, language, emotions, and other novel categories for understanding the past. The field of Russian/Soviet history, born in the polarized era of the Cold War, has adapted and responded to each of these successive turns.
This one-day conference offers an overview of the development of the Russian/Soviet history field through critical engagement with some of the most original and methodologically exciting turning points. Each panel centers on a different thematic area or methodological approach, with a key text suggested for discussion. The conference schedule roughly follows the chronological trajectory of Ronald G. Suny’s oeuvre: from his earliest studies on the social history of the October Revolution, through his engagement with the cultural turn of the 1980s-90s and focus on non-Russian nationalities within the USSR, and finally to more recent work on empire and affect. Panelists will provide an assessment of Suny’s contributions in these areas, as well as personal reflections on how these historiographic turns have influenced their own lives and intellectual projects.
"A Hit Parade of Historical Turns" Program
March 12, 2022
9:30 - 10:00 AM
Opening Remarks
Valerie Kivelson, Thomas N. Tentler Collegiate Professor;
Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of History, University of Michigan
10:00 - 11:00 AM
Revisionism and Revolution: Constructing a Social History of the October Revolution
Discussion based on "Toward a Social History of the October Revolution," in Red Flag Unfurled: History, HIstorians and the Russian Revolution (2017) / The Baku Commune, 1917-1918 (1972)
Lewis Siegelbaum, Jack & Margaret Sweet Professor Emeritus, Michigan State University
Donald J. Raleigh, Jay Richard Judson Distinguished Professor of History Emeritus, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Moderator: Albert Cavallaro, Doctoral Student in History, University of Michigan
11:15 AM - 12:30 PM
"Suspended in Webs of Significance:” The Cultural Turn and its Reversal
Discussion based on "Back and Beyond: Reversing the Cultural Turn?" in Red Flag Unfurled: History, HIstorians and the Russian Revolution (2017). (Updated version of "Back and Beyond: Reversing the Cultural Turn?" in American Historical Review, CVII, 5 (December 2002), pp. 1476-1499.)
Geoff Eley, Karl Pohrt Distinguished University Professor of Contemporary History, University of Michigan
Golfo Alexopoulos, Professor and Director of USF Institute on Russia, University of South Florida
Moderator: Forrest Holden, Doctoral Candidate in History, University of Michigan
12:30 - 2:00 PM Break
2:00-3:00 PM
Nationalism: Primordialism, Ethnicity and Invented Histories
Discussion based on “Nationalism: Constructing Primordialism: Old Histories for New Nations,” Journal of Modern History, LXXIII, 4 (December 2001), pp. 862-896 / The Revenge of the Past: Nationalism, Revolution, and the Collapse of the Soviet Union (1993)
Olga Maiorova, Associate Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Michigan
Krista Goff, Associate Professor of Russian and Soviet History, University of Miami
Moderator: Reynolds Hahamovitch, Doctoral Student in History, University of Michigan
3:15- 4:15 PM
The Empire Strikes Out
Discussion based on “The Empire Strikes Out: Imperial Russia, ‘National’ Identity, and Theories of Empire” in Red Flag Unfurled: History, HIstorians and the Russian Revolution (2017)
Valerie Kivelson, Thomas N. Tentler Collegiate Professor;
Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of History, University of Michigan
Jeffrey Veidlinger, Joseph Brodsky Professor of History and Judaic Studies, University of Michigan
Moderator: Douglas Northrop, Professor of History and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Michigan
4:30-5:30 PM
How the ‘West’ Wrote Its History of the USSR
Discussion based on “Reading Russia and the Soviet Union: How the ‘West’ Wrote Its History of the USSR, Red Flag Unfurled: History, Historians, and the Russian Revolution (2017) (pp. 53-122; originally in Cambridge History of Russia, vol. 3)/ The Soviet Experiment: Russia, the USSR, and the Successor States (1998)
David Engerman, Leitner International Interdisciplinary Professor of
History, Yale University
Anna Whittington, Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard University
Moderator: Alexander McConnell, Doctoral Candidate in History, University of Michigan
Cosponsored by:
Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies
College of Literature, Science, and the Arts
Department of History
Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies
U-M Office of Research
Slavic Languages and Literatures
Weiser Center for Europe and Eurasia
