For Immediate Release
March 4, 2019
USC INSTITUTE OF ARMENIAN STUDIES
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, California, USA
Contact: Syuzanna Petrosyan, Associate Director
[email protected] | 213.821.3943
“New Roads” - A New Podcast Channel from the USC Institute of Armenian Studies
The USC Institute of Armenian Studies podcast channel, “New Roads”, is a new
avenue for promoting scholarship that addresses national and global challenges
that, in turn, impact policy, development, and progress. “These public
discussions about history, politics, health and every other area of research
take scholarship to the public square, where it can impact decision making and
strategic planning within communities and especially in the Republic of
Armenia,” said Institute Director Salpi Ghazarian. The podcast channel has a
growing number of different series, such as Unpacking Armenia Studies, The
Quake, and Inch by Inch. Others are planned.
Unpacking Armenian Studies, hosted by Ghazarian, is home to interviews with
academics, journalists and policymakers in the field of - and on the fringes of
- Armenian Studies. It seeks to understand and make accessible the
conversations about who these scholars are, what they do and why it matters.
It’s an effort to humanize Armenian Studies, make it more accessible, and show
it for the broad, varied field that it has become. It is important and relevant
in understanding the Armenian experience today.
You will hear from Rober Koptas about running an Armenian publishing house in
Turkey. There is Dr. Anna Ohanyan of Stonehill College talking about
non-traditional conflicts and complicated geo-political agendas in the Caucasus
and in the Balkans. You will hear from Dr. Kristin Cavoukian of the University
of Toronto as she discusses Armenian-ness, identity, and exclusion as both
personal and academic questions. Dr. Tom Catena, a Catholic missionary and the
only resident surgeon practicing under harrowing conditions in the Nuba
Mountains in southern Sudan, is also a guest on the show. He talks about
humanitarian work, his work in Nuba and about his role as the 2017 Aurora Prize
Laureate.
Dr. Houri Berberian, Meghrouni Family Presidential Chair in Armenian Studies at
UC Irvine, who has written about Armenian involvement in Iran’s Constitutional
Revolution, talks about everything from life in Lebanon during the Civil War to
undergraduate studies at UC Berkeley where she came to appreciate the
connectedness of the peoples and issues of the greater Middle East and the
Armenian role in regional processes.
“The people, the graduate students, the young scholars who are doing Armenian
History now are doing it very differently. They are doing it within regional
and global contexts, and are looking at connections, and transnationalism, and
gender and sexuality - things that no Armenian scholars have touched until now,
and that's very important.” said Dr. Berberian to USC Institute of Armenian
Studies Director, Salpi Ghazarian. “Armenian studies is about 50 years behind
in these things and we have a lot of catching up to do.”
Dr. Sebouh Aslanian talks discusses the Armenian merchants from Iran’s New
Julfa region who operated simultaneously and successfully across all the major
empires of the 17th and18th centuries. These merchants were the original
transnational, global Armenians, and their legacy is visible throughout South
and East Asia in the form of churches and cultural monuments. Their
philanthropy bankrolled Armenian printing capacity in Venice, Amsterdam,
Livorno, Madras, Calcutta, Lvov and New Julfa.
Dr. Christina Maranci, Professor of Armenian Art at Tufts University, is the
author of a chapter in the Armenia! exhibit catalogue on Armenian art,
religion, and trade in the Middle Ages. She talks about her research that
places art, architecture, and the material objects of Armenia and Armenians
within a critical and historical context. UCLA's Dr. Shant Shekherdimian
discusses about Armenia's and Karabakh's health care systems and the Diaspora's
role. Dr. Katy Pearce, a professor of communications at the University of
Washington, talks about Armenia, Azerbaijan, social media, and the study of
societal transformation. Dr. Georgi Derluguian of NYU Abu Dhabi, discusses
'normal' life in the Soviet Union, Armenia's post-Soviet evolution, revolution,
and the "New Armenia."
In The Quake, the Institute’s Chitjian Research Archivist Gegham Mughnetsyan
explores the very personal and public history of the powerful Spitak earthquake
that devastated the northern region of Armenia and his hometown Gyumri on
December 7, 1988. He delves into the challenges that complicated the region’s
recovery process and that buried the future and promise of an entire generation.
“Podcasts are like your own private radio station. You can just click and
listen to conversations that interest you,” explains Ghazarian. You can listen
to the podcasts by searching for New Roads on iTunes, Spotify, SoundCloud
(https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__soundcloud.com_user-2D799767374&d=DwIGaQ&c=clK7kQUTWtAVEOVIgvi0NU5BOUHhpN0H8p7CSfnc_gI&r=LVw5zH6C4LHpVQcGEdVcrQ&m=zFK1pO9wL02QY8w3YHd1msteZP_dEwRfdWzMeFiJaz0&s=NLv9ppIIWaiIdCMIjRiTxJKjqQKNSPkL1wo8DnNEnRc&e=)
or anywhere you get your podcasts or by visiting armenian.usc.edu.
About the Institute
Established in 2005, the USC Institute of Armenian Studies supports
multidisciplinary scholarship to re-define, explore and study the complex
issues that make up the contemporary Armenian experience—from post-genocide to
the developing Republic of Armenia to the evolving diaspora. The institute
encourages research, publications and public service, and promotes links among
the global academic and Armenian communities.
For inquiries, write to [email protected] or call 213.821.3943.
