MIT to Hold Conference on America’s Response to the Armenian Genocide

/mit-to-hold-conference-on-america%e2%80%99s-respo nse-to-the-armenian-genocide/
By Weekly Staff – on February 20, 2010

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – A one-day conference, titled `America’s Response to
the Armenian Genocide: From Woodrow Wilson to Barack Obama,’ will take
place at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) On March 13.
The conference, co-organized by Professors Bedross Der Matossian and
Christopher Capozzola of MIT and sponsored by the Faculty of History,
the Center for International Studies (CIS), the Office of the
Religious Affairs, and the Program on Human Rights & Justice (PHRJ),
will be held in Building 10 Room 250 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The goal of the conference is to discuss and examine America’s
evolving policy toward the Armenian Genocide from World War I through
the present day. Although the Armenian Genocide is increasingly
recognized as one of the foundational events of the twentieth
century’s painful history of political and ethnic violence, scholars
who have examined its impact on United States foreign policy have
concentrated almost exclusively on the presidency of Woodrow Wilson.
But the legacy of the Armenian Genocide shaped U.S. policy through the
twentieth century as Americans confronted the meaning of `genocide’
itself in the wake of World War II, as they confronted Armenia’s
pivotal place in the tense Cold War conflict, as Armenian Diaspora
voices pressed Congress for recognition, and as geopolitics shifted
again with the unification of Europe and U.S. intervention in the
Middle East.

By bringing together experts on Armenia, specialists in U.S. foreign
relations, historians of ethnic conflict, genocide, and humanitarian
intervention, the conference seeks to further incorporate Armenian
history into historical and social scientific disciplines and to
foster dialogue between area studies specialists and U.S. historians.

Panels will discuss three major historical phases that shaped U.S.
policy towards the Armenian Genocide: World War I, the Cold War, and
the post-Cold War era. The latter two periods remain particularly
understudied periods.

Confirmed speakers at the conference include: Prof. Roger Petersen
(MIT), Prof. Richard Hovannisian (UCLA), Prof. Christopher Capozzola
(MIT), Prof. Simon Payaslian (BU), Prof. Dennis Papazian (University
of Michigan-Dearborn), Mr. Michael Bobelian (Lawyer, Author, and
Journalist), Mr. Gregory Aftandilian (Independent Scholar), Dr. Rouben
Adalian (ANI), Mr. Marc Mamigonian (NAASR), Dr. Suzanne Moranian
(AIWA), and Prof. Bedross Der Matossian (MIT). A keynote speech will
be delivered by Prof. Richard Hovannisian, who holds the Armenian
Educational Foundation Chair in Modern Armenian History at UCLA.

For more information please contact Bedross Der Matossian at bedross@mit.edu.