MIT to Host ‘America’s Response to the Genocide’ Conference

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (A.W.)—On Sat., March 13, the Faculty of History, the Center for International Studies, the Office of Religious Affairs, and the Program on Human Rights and Justice at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) will present “America’s Response to the Armenian Genocide: From Woodrow Wilson to Barack Obama.”
All sessions will take place from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. in Building 10, Room 250 on the MIT campus. The sessions are free and open to the public. No registration is required. For more information, email bedross@mit.edu.
The schedule is below.

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Opening Remarks
10 a.m.
Bedross Der Matossian (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
Session I: “Woodrow Wilson and the Armenian Question”
10:15-11:30 a.m.
Chair: David Engerman (Brandeis University)
Presenters: Christopher Capozzola (MIT), “Woodrow Wilson Views the World—The World Views Woodrow Wilson”; Suzanne Moranian (Armenian International Women’s Association),
“America’s Foreign Policy and the Armenian Genocide: 1915-1927”; and Gregory Aftandilian (independent scholar), “Sympathy but Lack of Political Will: The Wilson Administration’s Response to the Armenian Genocide and Its Aftermath”.

Session II: “The Cold War and the Armenian Genocide”

11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Chair: David Ekbladh (Tufts University)
Presenters: Richard G. Hovannisian (UCLA), “From Turkey to the Soviet Union and Back”;
Michael Bobelian (author, lawyer, and journalist), “The Truman Doctrine and America’s Abandonment of Wilson’s Principles”; and Dennis R. Papazian (University of Michigan-Dearborn), “Captive Nations as Pawns in the Cold War”.

Lunch Break
1-2 p.m.

Session III: “Post-Cold War Period and the Obama Administration”
2-3:30 p.m.
Chair: Jens Meierhenrich (Harvard University)
Presenters: Simon Payaslian (Boston University), “Genocide Recognition and the Political Economy of U.S. Foreign Policy”; Rouben Adalian (Armenian National Institute), “Morality, Policy, and Diplomacy”; and Marc Mamigonian (National Association for Armenian Studies and Research), “Turkish-Armenian ‘Reconciliation’ and the Road to Obama’s ‘Medz Yeghern’”.

Coffee Break
3:30-4 p.m.

Keynote Address
4-5 p.m.
Richard G. Hovannisian (UCLA), “Humanitarianism versus Pragmatism: The United States and the Armenian Question”.

Concluding Remarks
5 p.m.
Christopher Capozzola (MIT)