In 2012 two graduate students in Armenian Studies, Michael Pifer (Comparative Literature) and Alison Vacca (Near Eastern Studies) together with their mentor, Kathryn Babayan (Director of CAS), founded the Multidisciplinary Workshop for Armenian Studies (MWAS). MWAS is run by graduate students. It provides an intellectual community for graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and faculty to collaborate with one another, workshop chapters, conference papers, works-in-progress, and article drafts in a supportive atmosphere.
Our aim is to enrich the research and scholarship of our colleagues within Armenian Studies, while broadening the field of Armenian Studies to include new voices from adjacent fields.
Even as MWAS is independently funded it complements CAS programming sharing visiting scholars and workshoping their research in more intimate settings.
For 2026-27, the Multidisciplinary Workshop for Armenian Studies is organized by Paula Keshderian (Comparative Literature), Nazelie Doghramadjian (School of Information), and Arakel Minassian (Comparative Literature). Kathryn Babayan serves as the faculty sponsor of the interdisciplinary group. CAS Academic Programming Specialist, Vicken Mouradian, supports MWAS as its departmental financial administrator.
If you would like to be added to the MWAS community list, please email armenianstudies@umich.edu to be connected with the organizers.
