Hrant Dink Foundation and Hamazkayin Armenian Educational and Cultural Society organised an international conference entitled ‘Critical Approaches to Armenian Identity in the 21st Century: Fragility, Resilience and Transformation’ with the support of Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and Consulate General of Sweden on October 7-8, in The Hrant Dink Foundation’s Anarad Higutyun Building, Havak Hall. The conference, which draw attention from the public, was also simultenously followed from the website of the Hrant Dink Foundation’s website www.hrantdink.org and from the youtube channel.
1st Day
Opening Remarks - Rakel Dink
Opening Remarks - Meguerditch Meguerditchian
Keynote Speech - Khachig Tölölyan
Panel I: Conceptual Discussions
Chair Meguerditch Meguerditchian
Hratch Tchilingirian "What is ‘Armenian’ in Armenian Identity?"
Razmik Panossian "Homelands and Diasporas: Building a Multilocal National Identity"
Panel II: Post-Genocide Expressions
Chair Melissa Bilal
Mehmet Karasu "1915 in the Eyes of Young People: Comparing Turkey and Armenia"
Deanna Cachoian-Schanz "In the (Un)Space: Transnational Armenian Feminist Dialogues Between Identities, Belongings and Mother Tongues"
Association for the Study of Sociology of Memory and Culture "The Formation of Genocide Memory and Subjectivity of the Fourth Generation After the Genocide: A Comparative Analysis of the Youth in Turkey, Armenia and Diaspora"
Anita Toutikian "Armenian Art and Collective Identity from 1915 to 2015: Evolutionary Stages of Depatriated Armenian Diaspora Art with Special Focus on Lebanon"
Panel III: Diaspora Identities & Spatiotemporal Dimensions - I
Chair Hratch Tchilingirian
Harout Ekmanian The Right to the Narrative: Armenians of Aleppo in the Last 100 Years
Elli Ponomareva Diaspora Identity Construction in the Armenian Community of Tbilisi
Maral Kurkjian Identity Construction of Armenian Adolescents in France: The Effects of Cultural Socialization in School and in Family Contexts
Panel IV: Diaspora Identities & Spatiotemporal Dimensions - II
Chair Ferhat Kentel
Carel Bertram "Armenian Americans and Anatolian Identity: The Encounter with Home"
Rubina Peroomian "Armenian-American or American with Armenian Roots? The Post-Genocide Conditions and Circumstances in America and the Dynamics of Identity"
Konrad Siekierski "Armenians in Romania Today: Diasporic Interventions and Institutions in the Making of Community""
Anna Ohannesian "Charpin Descendants of Armenians in South Jordan: Questioning Armenian Identity"
Panel V: ‘Armenian’ as National Identity
Chair Ardaşes Margosyan
Suren Danielyan "Vulnerability of Fundamental Identity Issues in Armenia"
Harutyun Marutyan "Year 1990’s 24 April Walk and the Expressions of Overcoming the Genocide Victimhood"
Rouben Galichian "Identity through 2600 Years of Maps"
2nd Day
Panel VI: ‘Armenian’ as National Identity
Chair Aras Ergüneş
Christopher Nicholas Sheklian "The Conundrums of Secular Law for Ethno-Religious Identity"
Arda J. Melkonian "‘Not Armenian’? Armenian Evangelical (Protestant) Clergy Challenging Definitions of Armenian Identity"
Anatolii Tokmancev "Jehovah’s Witnesses in Armenia: Nationalism in a Strictly Non-Nationalist Sect"
Panel VII: Armenians in Turkey - I
Chair Ohannes Kılıçdağı
Hrag Papazian "Armenians and Other Armenians in Turkey"
Emre Can Dağlıoğlu "September 12th Regime and the Re-Shaped Identity of Armenians in Turkey"
Ararat Şekeryan "From Rebirth to Death: Armenian Intellegentsia and Lost Anthems of Western Armenia, 1918-1919"
Panel VIII: Armenians in Turkey - II
Chair Hülya Adak
Mehtap Tosun "Reconstructing the Self and Reclaiming Identity via Collective Memory: Dersim Armenians"
Pınar Karakılçık "The Country of the Enemy and the Language of Grandmothers: 'Çok afedersiniz Türkçeyi Türklerden eyi konuşuruk'"
Eden Naby "Sharing Identity Preservation in the 21st Century: Assyrians and Armenians"
Panel IX: Identity Representations in Literature
Chair Rubina Peroomian
Murat Cankara "Between ‘Us’ and ‘Them’: (A) Testimony in the ‘Other’s’ Language"
Nareg Seferian "Coming to Terms with Armenian-American Identity: The Testimonies of Michael Arlen, Jr. and Peter Balakian in ‘Passage to Ararat’ and ‘Black Dog of Fate’"
Arto Vaun "What is Given, What is Made: The Multilingual Poet Between Worlds"
Siranush Dvoyan "The Process of Modernization in French-Armenian Diaspora Literature"
