Benjamin Alexander to present hybrid lecture at NAASR
The National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR) will host an in-person and online lecture by Dr. Benjamin F. Alexander on his publication “Ararat in America: Armenian-American Culture and Politics in the Twentieth Century,” on Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2025, at 7:30 p.m. EST / 4:30 p.m. PST, at the NAASR Vartan Gregorian Building, 395 Concord Ave., Belmont, Mass.
The program will be presented as the Sixth Annual Prof. Charles B. Garabedian Lecture at NAASR and is co-sponsored by the Society for Armenian Studies (SAS).
This will be an in-person event and will also be presented online, live via Zoom (Registration: https://bit.ly/46Y3Vq0) and YouTube (www.youtube.com/c/ArmenianStudies).
How has the distinctive Armenian-American community expressed its identity as an ethnic minority while ‘assimilating’ to life in the United States? Dr. Benjamin Alexander’s “Ararat in America” examines the role of community leaders and influencers, including clergy, youth organizers and partisan newspaper editors, in fostering not only a sense of Armenian identity but specific ethnic-partisan leanings within the group’s population. Against the backdrop of key geopolitical events from the aftermath of the Armenian Genocide to the creation of an independent and then Soviet Armenia, it explores the rivalry between two major Armenian political parties, the Tashnags and the Ramgavars, and the relationship that existed between partisan leaders and their broader constituency. A detailed political and social history, this book integrates the Armenian experience into the broader and more familiar narratives of World War I, World War II and the Cold War in the U.S.
Dr. Benjamin F. Alexander is an adjunct associate professor at New York City College of Technology, U.S. He is the author of “Coxey’s Army: Popular Protest in the Gilded Age” (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015) and “The New Deal’s Forest Army: How the Civilian Conservation Corps Worked” (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018). “Ararat in America” is available for purchase from the NAASR Bookstore.
Professor Charles B. Garabedian (1917-1991) was born in Everett, Mass., and graduated magna cum laude from Everett High School and Tufts University. He attended Harvard Law School and graduated magna cum laude from Boston University Law School. During World War II, he served in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), and in the late 1940s, he began his teaching career at Suffolk University Law School. His expertise was tort litigation and damages, courses which he continuously taught at Suffolk University Law School for over 40 years. At the time of his death, Professor Garabedian was the senior faculty professor at Suffolk University Law School. The annual lecture in his memory has been established at NAASR by Prof. Garabedian’s niece, NAASR Board Member Joan E. Kolligian.
For more information about this program, contact NAASR at hq@naasr.org.
