New York Armenian Students’ Association / ASA of USA
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Contact person: Alec Gevorkyan
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04042005.html
For Immediate Release!
April 4, 2005
Contact: [email protected]
WHAT: NY ASA and NYU Armenian Hokee Club present:
Professor Marc Nichanian to discuss testimony in relation to Armenian
literature
“ART AS TESTIMONY”
WHERE: New York University, Kimmel Center, Room 903
60 Washington Square South, New York, NY
WHEN: Friday, April 29, 2005, 7:00- 9:00 PM
ADMISSION: Free
Art as Testimony
An Evening of Reflection with Literary Luminary,
Professor Marc Nichanian
Testimony as a literary objective has preoccupied Armenian literary efforts
throughout most of the twentieth century and persists to challenge writers
and literary critics alike. Yet, a thorough and comparative survey of
testimonial narratives and experiences still remains lacking, partly from
the sheer novelty of the concept. Testimony is a purpose or production
distinct from chronicles, memoirs, protests, or depictions of terror.
Recent works have attempted to identify just what differentiates and
identifies testimony by tackling questions such as what does testimony
testify for, an event or something else? Why do we collect testimonies, to
compose memory? In the seeming effort to establish authenticity, what is it
that becomes “authentic” through a testimonial document?
According to leading Armenian literary authority, Professor Marc Nichanian,
“The time has come to review the whole effort to bear witness, from literate
(and sometimes literary) narratives published between 1919 and 1922, to
survivors’ memoirs published throughout Armenian literary journals, to
narratives gathered in recent campaigns inspired by the methods of oral
history, to testimonies written (or translated) into English.” Professor
Nichanian will share his invaluable perspectives about the problematic of
testimony in an evening proudly organized by the NY Armenian Students’
Association and the NYU Armenian Club on Friday, April 29 at NYU’s Kimmel
Center.
Professor Nichanian will examine various examples of testimony, written by
both Armenians and non-Armenians as he explains the questions outlined
above. He will address an enduring crisis among Armenian writers who have
attempted and regularly failed to write testimony as literature, as art.
With references to Zabel Yesayan and Hagop Oshagan, he will also present a
sampling of the body of writings, reflections, and literary experiences on
the essence of testimony in the Armenian language.
Professor Nichanian is currently guest-editing a volume of Armenian Review
entitled Art and Testimony, which integrates a discussion of Atom Egoyan’s
film Ararat. He is simultaneously preparing a volume on Armenian Testimony
in the Twentieth Century. He recently presented a similar paper at the UCLA
International Conference, “After Nine Decades: the Enduring Legacy of the
Armenian Genocide.”
* * *
Marc Nichanian was born in Paris in 1946. He received his primary and
secondary education in French schools and studied Armenian (both modern and
classical) at the School of Oriental Languages. He studied Philosophy in
Paris and Strasbourg as a student of Jean-Luc Nancy and Philippe
Lacoue-Labarthe. He received his Ph.D. in Philosophy in 1979 for a thesis
on the meaning of what philosophers and logicians call «founding» (in
French, le fondement). He began writing in Armenian early on and has an
extensive series of articles, essays, anthologies, and translations to his
name. He has been published in literary reviews in Armenia as well as in
the diaspora. After teaching Armenian literature first as an itinerant
professor (in Jerusalem, Venice, Paris, Montreal, and Los Angeles), he
lectured as visiting Professor of Armenian Language and Literature at UCLA
(1995-1996) and held the Chair of Armenian Language and Civilization at
Columbia University (1996-2004). He recently completed research as a
scholar-in-residence at the Armenian Research Center at the University of
Michigan, Dearborn
Among his luminous accomplishments is Gam, Analytical Review, a five-volume
literary journal, which he conceived, edited, and published alongside
numerous personal contributions. Volume VI will appear in the spring of
2005. He is also the author of Ages et usages de la langue arménienne (Ages
and Usages of the Armenian Language, Paris, 1989), which provides an
«institutional» history of Armenian; Bibliography of Hagop Oshagan (Los
Angeles, 1999); the first volume of a series entitled Writers of Disaster;
Armenian Literature in the Twentieth Century (London, 2002); and Yeghishe
Charents, Poet of the Revolution (Costa Mesa, 2003). His translations
include a book of poems by Zareh Khrakhouni, two books by Vahakn Dadrian
about the Armenian Genocide, essays by Friedrich Nietzsche, Walter Benjamin,
Ernst Jünger, Maurice Blanchot, Georges Bataille, and Jean-Luc Nancy. He
recently translated (from French into Armenian) a significant treatise by
Antoine Berman called The Experience of the Foreign on theories of
translation and culture in German Romanticism. It will be published in the
series Grakan Ughi (Yerevan).
The ASA is a nationwide membership organization that promotes Armenian
culture and education by providing Armenian communities with social,
academic, and educational events. All funds raised by the regional branches
contribute to the ASA’s scholarship fund for Armenian students studying in
the United States. Armenian Hokee (the NYU Armenian Club) regularly
co-sponsors events with the NY ASA, making it possible to present free
public events to students and the community alike.
Admission is free. Donations are welcome and appreciated.
For more information about the NY ASA, please visit
For additional information about NYU Armenian Hokee Club, please visit
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http://www.asainc.org/common/events/ny_ianhokeeclubpresentprofessormarcnichanian_
www.asainc.org
www.asainc.org/newyork.
www.nyu.edu/clubs/armenian.