“Home Again” Virtual Book Discussion with Mari Firkatian, Ph.D.

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Book Cover for Home Again: Armenian Recipes from the Ottoman Empire by Mari A. Firkatian, Ph.D.

Date: Thursday, June 25, 2020
Time: 5:00 PM PST
Register Online

This event is free and open to the public.

The Circle of Friends for the Armenian Studies Program at the University of California, Irvine presents:

HOME AGAIN: ARMENIAN RECIPES FROM THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

A Virtual Book Presentation and Cooking Demonstration by Mari Firkatian, Professor of History, University of Hartford

Thursday, June 25 at 5 p.m. (PST) via Zoom

RSVP by June 24th

Dr. Mari Firkatian’s Home Again: Armenian Recipes from the Ottoman Empire combines a collection of Armenian recipes from the Ottoman Empire with a memoir of a family of immigrants who kept certain recipes close to their hearts as a means of preserving their cultural heritage. She examines the relationship between history and cuisine, between displacement and memory, and between the individual and their ancestors.

Dr. Firkatian is Professor of History at the University of Hartford. She has been a Fulbright Scholar and a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow as well as a Yale University Fellow and a recipient of International Research and Exchanges Board scholarships. She has lived and traveled extensively in Southeast Europe and the Soviet Union. Trained as a linguist and a historian, her research interests include minority populations, diplomatic history, and intellectual history. Most recently, she has begun to explore the history of food and the key role it plays as a historical artifact.

The event will be hosted to support the Western Armenian Language Curriculum at UCI. Your contribution and generosity are welcome!

“Forced Into Genocide” Book Discussion with Author Adrienne Alexanian

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Date: Thursday, October 24, 2019
Time: 5:00 - 8:00 PM
Location: UConn Hartford Times Building, 10 Prospect Street, Room 210, Hartford, CT (enter through Front Street entrance)


This event is free and open to the public.
Visitors may park at the Front Street North Garage (24 Front Street, Hartford, CT 06103) for the hourly rate. UConn permit holders may park at the Convention Center for validation. Accessible parking accommodations are typically accommodated in the North Front Street Garage where handicap parking spaces are located on Levels 1 (3 spaces), Level 2 (2 spaces), Level 3 (two spaces), Level 4 (five spaces), and Level 6 (2 spaces).  The central elevator bay provides accessible access to Front Street on Level 2.  The handicap parking spaces on Level 1 also includes a van accessible parking stall and access to this level is accessible via elevator 24/7.  The doors from the Traveler’s Plaza that lead to the accessible parking stalls on Level 4 of the garage remain open until 10:00 PM; there are several steps and a door without a power assisted opener along this travel path.

Book Discussion

"Forced Into Genocide" is the riveting memoir of Yervant Edward Alexanian: an eye-witness to the massacre and dislocation of his family and countrymen in Ottoman Turkey during World War I. Incredibly, Alexanian experienced the Armenian Genocide as a conscript in the Turkish army. His memoir is a one-of-a-kind "insider's account," documenting the Genocide's astonishing cruelty - but also its rare, unexpected acts of humanity.

No comparable account exists in the literature of the Armenian Genocide. This edition, translated from Alexanian's hand-written chronicle, includes rare documents and photos that the author preserved, a scholarly introduction, translator's note, and other supportive matter.

About the Author and Editor

Born in Sivas, Turkey, Yervant Alexanian survived the Hamidian massacres as an infant to later fight for survival as a conscript in the Ottoman Turkish Army during the Armenian Genocide of 1915. He fled to America in 1920, where he spent his life advocating justice for his people.

Adrienne G. Alexanian, Yervant's daughter, has spent years preparing her father's manuscript for publication. She is an educator and a 2010 recipient of the Ellis Island Medal of Honor.

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Armenian Memory Project

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UConn’s Digital Media & Design Department is offering a special topics course in Fall 2019 in which students will create a digital representation of a single Western Armenian community from the pre-1915 Ottoman Empire. Drawing from primary sources in archives, memoirs, photos, maps, interviews, and first-person narratives, the final project will be a documentary video about the Armenian town of Marsovan. This class will serve as a pilot project for a much larger initiative to recreate the lost worlds of Western Armenian communities that once flourished on their historic homelands but no longer exist in present-day Turkey. Reviving communal life, cultural, religious, educational and economic practices, the initiative will aim to create a multi-dimensional world from largely print based sources for the layperson and students of history. An example from a spring 2019 course can be seen below.

 

 

UConn Virologist Joins International Effort to Eradicate PPR in Armenia & Georgia

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Guillermo Risatti, an associate professor in Pathobiology and Veterinary Science, is coordinating an international research team with the support of a $1.6 million grant award from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), an agency within the United States Department of Defense (DoD), to detect and monitor Peste des Petites Ruminants (PPR) in Armenia and Georgia. The two-year biosurveillance project will involve the work of the Laboratory of the Ministry of Agriculture in Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia; The Ministry of Agriculture of Armenia; the National Veterinary Institute of Sweden and the University of Connecticut. The project aims at aligning their activities with the FAO and OIE joint strategy to combat the disease. Read more at https://naturally.uconn.edu/2019/04/16/virologist-joins-international-effort-to-eradicate-deadly-animal-disease.

2019 Discovering Armenian Heritage & Culture

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Date: Saturday, March 30, 2019
Time: 10:00 AM - 2:00 PM
Location: The Mark Twain House & Museum
385 Farmington Avenue, Hartford, CT 06105

This event is free and open to the public.

Join us for UConn's Discovering Armenian Heritage & Culture event! Bring family and friends to enjoy food, music, workshops, book signing and panel discussion. This event is free and open to the public.

Images provided by Project SAVE Armenian Photograph Archives.

Download the program here.

AGENDA

10:00 AM | WELCOME

Nina Rovinelli Heller, Ph.D., Dean, School of Social Work, University of Connecticut

10:05 AM | BOOK DISCUSSION & DEMONSTRATION

HOME AGAIN: ARMENIAN RECIPES FROM THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE
Mari Firkatian, Ph.D, Professor of History, University of Hartford

THE MAKING OF ARMENIAN STRING CHEESE
Maggie Stepanian

11:00 AM | LECTURE & RECITAL

CONTEMPORARY ARMENIAN MUSIC
Tatev Amiryan, DMA, Composer & Pianist
Anna Hayrapetyan, Soprano and a lecturer in Women's Gender & Sexuality Studies, University of Connecticut

11:45 AM | PANEL DISCUSSION

DISCOVERING YOUR ARMENIAN ROOTS: HOW TO RESEARCH GENEALOGY & ANCESTRY
George Aghjayan, Director of the Armenian Historical Archives
Marc Mamigonian, Director of Academic Affairs, National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR)
Armen T. Marsoobian, Ph.D., Professor and Chair of Philosophy, Southern Connecticut State University
Catherine Masud, Documentarian and Lecturer, Digital Media & Design, University of Connecticut
 Tsoleen Sarian, Executive Director, Project SAVE Armenian Photograph Archives
 Moderated by Kathryn Libal, Ph.D., Director of the Human Rights Institute and Associate Professor of Social Work and Human Rights, University of Connecticut

1:15 PM | LUNCH & DISCUSSION

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Snapshot: Dan Adler in Armenia

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Dan Adler Armenia

Anthropology professor Daniel Adler (top left) directed excavations at an archaeological site in northern Armenia. (Photos courtesy of Dan Adler)

In July 2018, UConn associate professor of anthropology Daniel Adler and Keith Wilkinson, University of Winchester, UK, co-directed excavations at an Early Pleistocene archaeological site in northern Armenia known as Hahgtanak-3. The site documents the earliest human occupation of Armenia, and may be more than 1 million years old.

Read the story in UConn Today.

2018 Armenian Harvest Festival

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Please note that the October 13, 2018 event has been canceled due to conflicts with events in Hartford and greater New England. We anticipate holding an Armenian Ancestry & Heritage event in the spring highlighting how to trace genealogy, traditional foods and cultural activities. More details, including date, time, and featured activities are forthcoming.

Date: Saturday, October 13, 2018 (CANCELED)
Time: 11:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Location: Nathan Hale Inn, 855 Bolton Road, Storrs, CT

This event is free and open to the public.

Save the date for UConn's third annual Armenian Harvest Festival! Bring family and friends to join us for food, music, dancing, workshops and craft vendors. This event is free and open to the public.

 

Featured Activities & Vendors

The Art of Rug Weaving | Workshop by Hayk Oltaci

The Making of Armenian String Cheese | Workshop by Maggie Stepanian

Contemporary Armenian Music | Lecture & Recital by Tatev Amiryan, DMA, and Anna Hayrapetyan

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The Armenian Mirror-Spectator: Discovering Armenian Heritage & Culture

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Panel Discussion

By The Armenian Mirror-Spectator | Apr 18, 2019

"HARTFORD, Conn. - Connecticut was home to a program of music, demonstrations, a panel of renowned scholars and Armenian food on Saturday, March 30 as the University of Connecticut presented a comprehensive program and festival titled "Discovering Armenian Heritage and Culture.

Held at the historic Mark Twain House and Museum in Hartford, the program drew some 150 people from Connecticut and the northeast eager to learn more about all things Armenian."

Read the full article or download the most recent edition of The Armenian-Mirror Spectator.