National Association for Armenian Studies and Research - NAASR

National Association for Armenian Studies and Research - NAASR The National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR). Advancing scholarship since 1955.

Through NAASR’s fund-raising efforts, the first two endowed chairs in Armenian Studies in the U.S. were established at Harvard University in 1959 and at the University of California at Los Angeles in 1965, greatly increasing awareness of Armenian contributions to world culture and civilization, laying the factual foundation upon which Genocide recognition rests, and leading to a new generation rel

ying on NAASR for academic research and connections. NAASR has also supported Armenian Studies programs at many other universities, among them Columbia, U-Mass Boston and Amherst, Wayne State, Tufts, CalState at Fresno, UConn, UC-Berkeley, and Bentley.

06/11/2026

We are saddened to learn of the passing of Matthew Spender, author of From a High Place: A Life of Arshile Gorky and Arshile Gorky: A Life Through Letters and Documents and the husband of Gorky’s daughter Maro.

NAASR welcomed Matthew and Maro along with the Rev. Fr. Krikor Maksoudian in 2009 for the presentation “New Perspectives on Arshile Gorky.”

🔗 https://youtu.be/DBcUhcOZPlI?si=F3ImYRkGB6fpu-AX

Researcher Isaac Gazmararian is a recent recipient of a NAASR travel grant to support a research trip to London to do ar...
06/10/2026

Researcher Isaac Gazmararian is a recent recipient of a NAASR travel grant to support a research trip to London to do archival work for his Jerusalem Kaghakatsi Project, an extensive historical investigation of the Armenian Kaghakatsi, Armenians who had established themselves in Jerusalem before the Armenian Genocide, looking at their experiences in 1940s Jerusalem under the British Mandate and subsequent 1947-48 Arab-Israeli war. He is seen here working in the British Library.

From the shelves of NAASR’s Mardigian Library: two enduring histories of the first Republic of Armenia, and the bond bet...
05/28/2026

From the shelves of NAASR’s Mardigian Library: two enduring histories of the first Republic of Armenia, and the bond between the men who wrote them.

May 28 marks the establishment of the Republic of Armenia in 1918. Simon Vratsian, the last Prime Minister of that short-lived republic, published Hayastani Hanrapetutʻiwn in Paris in 1928. Decades later, a young Richard Hovannisian traveled to Beirut to learn Armenian for one reason: to read Vratsian’s book. Vratsian became his mentor, and Hovannisian’s own four-volume The Republic of Armenia would go on to become the definitive English-language history.

Read the full feature 🔗 Link in bio

Join us for an afternoon of storytelling and games in Armenian led by Teni Apelian.FEATURED PRESENTERTeni Apelian. 📅 DAT...
05/27/2026

Join us for an afternoon of storytelling and games in Armenian led by Teni Apelian.FEATURED PRESENTER
Teni Apelian.
📅 DATE & TIME
Saturday, May 30, 2026 | 3:00 PM ET
📍 LOCATION
NAASR Vartan Gregorian Building
395 Concord Ave, Belmont, MA
👥 FORMAT
In-Person

NAASR is pleased to co-sponsor the Second International Workshop, “Transmitting and Preserving Languages in the Medieval...
05/27/2026

NAASR is pleased to co-sponsor the Second International Workshop, “Transmitting and Preserving Languages in the Medieval and Early Modern Mediterranean.”

This two-day workshop brings together international scholars to examine how languages—with a special focus on Armenian and Greek—were taught, learned, and sustained across shifting socio-cultural landscapes.

Presentations will explore shared trends in language learning, translation, and diplomacy, highlighting the critical roles of scribes, students, teachers, and migrants.

🗓️ Dates: June 4 & 5, 2026
📍 Location: Balliol College, Oxford (Gillis Lecture Theatre & Massey Room) and Online

This event is free and open to the public. Registration is required for both in-person and virtual attendance.

For registration and link for online attendance, please email [email protected]

Today, and every day, we remember with profound gratitude the generations of brave Americans who answered their country’...
05/25/2026

Today, and every day, we remember with profound gratitude the generations of brave Americans who answered their country’s call and made the ultimate sacrifice in its defense. We honor the lives they laid down, the futures they surrendered, and the families who have carried their absence.

Among them are countless Armenian Americans whose courage, devotion, and sacrifice will not be forgotten. As an organization devoted in part to the study of the Armenian experience in America, we hold their stories close: a history written across more than a century of American service, of belonging earned at the highest cost.

We are pleased to invite you to a special presentation by Dr. Hayk Demoyan drawing on his massive publication “Tiflis: A...
05/23/2026

We are pleased to invite you to a special presentation by Dr. Hayk Demoyan drawing on his massive publication “Tiflis: An Illustrated History of Its Armenian Heritage,” 2024, (Тифлис: Иллюстрированная история Армянского наследия).

This volume presents previously unknown or little-known pages of the history of Tiflis (Tbilisi)-the center of Armenian intellectual, economic, and cultural activity in the South Caucasus. The Armenian presence in old Tiflis is an impressive and valuable legacy of both the Georgian and Armenian peoples.

🗓️ Date & Time: Thursday, May 28, 2026 | 7:30 PM ET
📍 Location: NAASR Vartan Gregorian Building, 395 Concord Avenue, Belmont, MA
🎥 YouTube livestream & Zoom. Link in bio.

This event is free and open to all. Following the program there will be a reception. We invite you to come to NAASR, visit the bookstore, and enjoy the good company and a great lecture!

05/21/2026

Folk, politics, dance, diaspora. This is a small sample of what was on the turntable in one Armenian American home. What always strikes us is how much world a single collection can contain.

NAASR has long been a destination for and conservator of record collections. Donations, which often include hundreds of records, are carefully sorted by artist or label, catalogued, and preserved within our archive.

Interested in donating a collection to NAASR? Get in touch — link in bio.

05/13/2026

What does it mean to Re-Member after genocide?

In his framework of reparative justice, Dr. Jermaine McCalpin identifies seven pillars: recognition, reclamation, replacement, redemption, rectification, rehabilitation, and re-membering.

Re-membering is not recollection. It is the active restoration of dignity and meaning to memory that genocide has systematically destroyed. Where genocide dismembers, stripping communities of their stories, histories, and identities, re-membering is the structured process of putting them back.

For the descendants of genocide victims, McCalpin argues, re-membering is not the end of reparative justice. It is its culmination.

The full program held at NAASR “Beyond Recognition: Reparative Justice and the Armenian Genocide,” is now live on the NAASR YouTube channel. Link in bio.

Featuring Dr. Jermaine McCalpin, Dr. Henry Theriault, and Dr. Dikran Kaligian. Moderated by Marc Mamigonian.

Presented by NAASR and

05/12/2026

The term “reparations” is often used but rarely understood.

Dr. Jermaine McCalpin defines it precisely. When a genocide occurs, a historical debt is created. Reparative justice is the process of satisfying that debt, not as an act of sympathy or political goodwill, but as the fulfillment of a structured obligation to those whose lives, identities, and communities were systematically destroyed.

That obligation does not diminish with time or dissolve with denial.

The full program held at NAASR, “Beyond Recognition: Reparative Justice and the Armenian Genocide,” is now live on the NAASR YouTube channel. Link in bio.

Featuring Dr. Jermaine McCalpin, Dr. Henry Theriault, and Dr. Dikran Kaligian. Moderated by Marc Mamigonian. Held at NAASR, April 30, 2026.

Presented by NAASR and

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