The Armenian Tragedy: A Commemorative Symposium

This series of presentations by scholarly researchers will construct a narrative of Armenian experience in the late Ottoman Empire: from the cultural efflorescence before the First World War, as recorded in photographs and memoirs, through the tragic sufferings, deportations and massacres of the years 1915-17 to the struggles of survivors after the Armistice. Further papers will focus on the question of genocide and on gendered narrative, collective memory and experience in the Diaspora.

For a report on this symposium by Prof Edward Timms see here.

1.30 pm Registration

2.00 Welcome and Introduction: Prof Graham Dawson (University of Brighton) and Prof Edward Timms (University of Sussex)

2.20 Prof Bob Brecher (University of Brighton), ‘What is it that matters so much about genocide?’ 

A film of the introductions can be found here 

2.40 Prof Armen T. Marsoobian (Southern Connecticut University), ‘Fragments of a Lost Armenian Homeland: Bearing Witness to a Silenced Past’

(illustrated lecture incorporating photographs from the Dildilian collection)

Followed by Questions and Discussion

4.00 Tea Break

4.30 Ara Sarafian (Gomidas Institute, London), ‘The Destruction of Armenians in the Kharpert Plain, 1915-17’

5.00 Ari Sekeryan (Oxford University), ‘The Armenian Community at the End of the Ottoman Empire: Reflections in the Armenian Press, 1918-1923’

Followed by Questions and Discussion

6.00-7.00 Refreshments

7.15 Helin Anahit (Middlesex University), 'Gendered Narratives of Trauma and Survival through the Politics of Collective Memory'.

7.45 Vatche Simonian (London) ‘Personal Experiences of a First Generation Diaspora Armenian’

Followed by Questions and Discussion

8.45 Closure

Hosted by the Centre for Research in Memory, Narrative and Histories, University of Brighton and coordinated by Saime Göksu, Jackie Stimpson and Edward Timms.