Watenpaugh to Talk on ‘Rescue of Trafficked Women and Children after Genocide’

BELMONT, Mass.—On Thurs., Oct. 28, Prof. Keith David Watenpaugh of the University of California at Davis will give a lecture entitled “Finding the Lost: The Rescue of Trafficked Women and Children After the Armenian Genocide” at the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR) Center, 395 Concord Ave., Belmont. The lecture will be co-sponsored by the Armenian International Women’s Association (AIWA) and NAASR.

Drawn from his forthcoming book, Bread from Stones: The Middle East and the Making of Modern Humanitarianism, Watenpaugh’s talk will examine the League of Nations’ efforts on behalf of deported and vulnerable populations of trafficked Armenian women and children (1920-27). It presents a case in which the rescuing of trafficked survivors of genocide and civil violence—a seemingly unambiguous good—was at once a constitutive act in drawing the boundaries of the international community, a critical moment in the definition of humanitarianism, and a site of resistance to the colonial presence in the post-Ottoman eastern Mediterranean; a presence that was often defended in the language of human rights, progress, and civilization.

Keith David Watenpaugh is a historian and associate professor of modern Islam, human rights and peace who teaches in the Religious Studies Program at UC-Davis. He is the author of Being Modern in the Middle East and has written articles for the “American Historical Review,” the “International Journal of Middle East Studies,” “Social History,” and “Middle East Report.”

The lecture will begin promptly at 8 p.m. Admission to the event is free (donations appreciated). The NAASR Center is located opposite the First Armenian Church and next to the U.S. Post Office. Ample parking is available around the building and in adjacent areas.

For more information about the lecture, contact NAASR by calling (617) 489-1610 or emailing hq@naasr.org, or AIWA by calling (617) 926-0171 or emailing aiwainc@aol.com.