București: Idei in Agora. „Armenian Identities Homelands and Diasporas” – International Conference

Armenian Identities
Homelands and Diasporas
International Conference

Conveners: Sorin Antohi and Varujan Vosganian
Organizers: Union of Armenians of Romania, Bucharest City Museum, Orbis Tertius Association

Bucharest City Museum, Casa Filipescu-Cesianu, October 21-22, 2023

The Union of Armenians of Romania, the Bucharest City Museum, and the Orbis Tertius Association convene an international conference devoted to the intercultural, transnational study of Armenian identities. It will be held under the auspices of the Academia Europaea.

The conference continues the collective effort that started with a similar event, The Armenian Genocide: History, Memory, Responsibility (Bucharest City Museum, Casa Filipescu-Cesianu, October 13-14, 2017, Organizers: Union of Armenians of Romania, Lepsiushaus Potsdam, Bucharest City Museum, Orbis Tertius Association, Conveners: Varujan Vosganian, Rolf Hosfeld, Bedros Horasangian, Sorin Antohi). The 2017 conference has explored the history of the Armenian genocide and of its lasting consequences, its memory (including its forgetting, denial, forgiveness, transgenerational trauma, and public significance), and the related issues of responsibility (from the ethics of memory to political recognition, from moral solidarity to retrospective justice).

Conference videos at International Conference: The Armenian Genocide: History, Memory, Responsibility – Casa Filipescu-Cesianu – Muzeul Municipiului Bucuresti (muzeulbucurestiului.ro)
This conference, while addressing aspects of the genocide, integrates it in the longue durée of Armenian history, from its beginnings to its current avatar as part of a post-historical global condition, for which the diasporic dimension is central. In the spirit of the previous conference, emphasis is to be laid on the conceptual, global, and comparative dimensions of the millennia of Armenian experience (including its internal diversity), while keeping in mind the latter’s specificity.

The event will be open to the public, enjoy media coverage, will be video recorded and shared online, also being the basis for future publications.

It is part of the series, Idei în Agora / Ideas in the Agora, established in 2017 and hosted by Sorin Antohi. So far, in its 82 editions and other associated events, the series has featured more than 100 participants from Romania, Armenia, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Moldova, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States.

Saturday, October 21
17:00-19:00 Session One:
Moderator: Sorin Antohi
His Holiness Datev Hagopian, Bishop of the Armenian Church of Romania, Welcome Speech
Varujan Vosganian, Opening Address
Sorin Antohi, How Can One Be Armenian? From Homelands to Diasporas
Avedis Hadjian, “We are a small nation”: Exclusive Nationalism and the Definition of Who is Armenian

Sunday, October 22
9:30-11:00 Session Two:
Hakob Matevosyan, Diaspora as a Social Field: Unpacking Cultural Identities and Power Relations Within the Armenians of Hungary
Arsen Arzumanyan, The Armenian Orphanage in Strunga, Romania
11:00-11:30 Coffee Break
11:30-13:00 Session Three:
Levon Chookaszian, Massacres, Genocide, and Freedom Fighters in Armenian Art
Bedros Horasangian, What Should Armenians Do if They Don’t Have Gas and Oil and Nobody Needs Them?
13:00-15:00 Lunch Break
15:00-16:30 Session Four:
Moderator: Varujan Vosganian
Sossie Kasbarian, (Re) constructing ‘Homeland’ – Imagined, intentional and precarious
Razmik Panossian, Building a Nation in Diaspora: Armenians 1920-1991
Sorin Antohi, Concluding Remarks

Participants
1. Sorin Antohi (Bucharest) sorin.n.antohi@gmail.com
2. Arsen Arzumanyan (Yerevan/Bucharest) arzumanyan.arsen@gmail.com
3. Levon Chookaszian (Yerevan) levonch@yahoo.com
4. Avedis Hadjian avedishadjian@hotmail.com
5. Bedros Horasangian (Bucharest) bedrosh50@yahoo.com
6. Sossie Kasbarian (Stirling, UK) sossie.kasbarian@stir.ac.uk
7. Hakob Matevosyan (Berlin) hakob.matevosyan@zois-berlin.de
8. Razmik Panossian (Lisbon) rpanossian@gulbenkian.pt
9. Varujan Vosganian (Bucharest) varujanvosganian2@yahoo.com

For participants’ bios and for abstracts, please go to Idei în Agora – Muzeul Municipiului Bucuresti (muzeulbucurestiului.ro)