‘Critical Approaches to Armenian Identity in The 21st Century’ Conference Kicks off in Istanbul

A conference entitled “Critical Approaches to Armenian Identity in the 21st Century: Vulnerability, Resilience, and Transformation” organized by the Hrant Dink Foundation and the Hamazkayin Armenian Educational and Cultural Society kicked off in Istanbul on Oct. 7.

Khachig Tölölyan, Hratch Tchilingirian, Meguerditch Meguerditchyan, Razmig Panossian discussing Armenian identity at the conference. (Photo: Hrant Dink Foundation)

As new realities challenge traditional conceptualizations of Armenian identity, new interdisciplinary approaches are needed to understand the directions that Armenian identity and scholarship on this identity are taking. The differences in the environments in which each community lives, internal differences within each community, generational disparities, as well as the reconceptualization of the role of collective memory in shaping identity put into question the dominant and monolithic conceptions of Armenian identity. Some of the key questions that the conference will address include:

The historical background on which Armenians have constructed their collective identity;
The main characteristics of contemporary Armenian identities and their spatiotemporal dimensions;
The role of post-genocide “victimhood” and denial of the genocide in maintaining collective identity;
Vulnerability;
The role of Armenian institutions such as churches, political parties, schools, museums, and the role of Armenia as a state regarding issues related to identity;
The politics of class, religion, gender, sexuality, and age in the shaping of identity;
The patterns of assimilation, denial, inclusion-exclusion within diaspora communities and in Turkey;
The ways in which the violence in the Middle East – from deportations and massacres to the current migration and refugee crisis – affects Armenian identity;
Forms and use of art, literature, language, and aesthetics in the development, change, maintenance, and expression of the Armenian identity;
The concerns and issues pertaining to Armenian identity; the new research venues that are needed for and the new terms and parameters emerging as part of the future Armenian identity, such as the Islamized Armenians.

The conference is organized with the purpose of studying the various approaches to Armenian identity today and the ways these approaches connect to identity studies.

The working languages of the conference will be Armenian, English, and Turkish. Papers presented at the conference will be published in the form of conference proceedings by Hrant Dink Foundation Publications.

Scientific Committee