June 14 - 15, 2023 | 2023 Ralph and Ruth Fisher Forum for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies
Co-organizers: Donna A. Buchanan (Professor, Music, Anthropology, Slavic Languages & Literatures); Maureen E. Marshall (Associate Director, REEEC; President, ARISC)
Location: Levis Faculty Center, Room 210
(919 W Illinois St, Urbana, IL 61801)
Cosponsored by the:
American Research Institute of the South Caucasus and the University of Illinois Collaborative for Cultural Heritage Management and Policy; Center for Advanced Study; Center for Global Studies; Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies; European Union Center; Initiative in Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies; Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center; and School of Music
*All times are in CDT*
Wednesday, June 14
1:15–1:30 Welcoming Remarks
Maureen E. Marshall and Donna A. Buchanan
John Randolph
Associate Professor, History, and Director, Russian, East European, and Eurasian
Center, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
1:30–3:00 Opening Keynote Lecture and Discussion
“Making a Homeland: Exploring ‘Roots’ Mobility and Armenian Diasporic Engagement”
Tsypylma Darieva (To be delivered remotely)
Senior Researcher
Centre for East European and International Studies, ZOiS, Berlin
Introduction: John Randolph
Associate Professor, History
Director, Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center
3:00–3:30 Break
3:30–6:00 Panel 1
Diasporic Engagements: Homelands, Disjunctures, Dialogues
Chair: Ani Yazedjian
Acting Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost University Professor
Illinois State University
3:30–4:15 “Armenian Music” and its Discontents
Sylvia Alajaji
Professor of Music
Franklin & Marshall College
4:15–5:00 Diasporic Multiculturalism
Daniel Fittante
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Södertörn University, Stockholm
5:00–5:45 “Bamboo Reeds Bought in Chinatown”: Armenian Music, Racialization, and Inter-Ethnic Histories in 20th-Century California
Alyssa Mathias
Visiting Assistant Professor of Music
Knox College
6:00–8:00 Reception
South Lobby, School of Music
1114 W. Nevada St., Urbana
Music by Dimitri Glaros, sophomore, BA Music Composition, UIUC
***
Thursday, June 15
9:00–12:15 Panel 2
Staging Armenian Subjectivities: Sounding Struggle, Choreographing
Conflict
Chair: Rebecca Nettl-Fiol
Professor, Department of Dance
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
9:00–9:45 Socialist Verismo and the Pastoral Idyll of the Armenian Kolkhoz
Knar Abrahamyan (To be delivered remotely)
Assistant Professor of Music Theory and Race
Columbia University
9:45–10:30 The Taron Underground: Performing Exile and Resistance in Post-Genocide Soviet Armenia
Armen Adamian
PhD student, Ethnomusicology
University of California at Los Angeles
10:30–10:45 Break
10:45–11:30 The Journey: Commemorative Choreographies of Bulgarian Armenian Trauma, Testimony, and Transcendence
Donna A. Buchanan
Professor of Musicology, Anthropology, and Slavic Languages & Literatures
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
11:30–12:15 Choreographing Armenian Goyamart: Dancing Yarkhushta during Wartime Protest
Natalie Kamajian
PhD student, Culture and Performance
University of California at Los Angeles
Director of Dance, Lernazang Ensemble, Los Angeles
1:30–4:00 Panel 3
Showcasing Armenianness: Homelands, Hostlands, and Entangled Transcultural Heritages
Chair: Helaine Silverman
Professor, Department of Anthropology
Director, Collaborative for Cultural Heritage Management and Policy
Trustee, World Heritage USA-US/ICOMOS
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
1:30–2:15 Entangled Assemblage: Armenian Material Culture in an Occasional Collection
Maureen E. Marshall
Associate Director, Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center, University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
President, American Research Institute of the South Caucasus
2:15–3:00 The Flavors of Cultural Preservation: Armenians Cooking in Diaspora
Mari Firkatian
Professor of History
University of Hartford
3:00–3:45 Heritage in the Hostland: Armenian-American Engagement at the 2018
Smithsonian Folklife Festival
Sabrina Papazian
Research Associate, Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage
User Experience Researcher
3:45–4:15 Break
4:15–6:00 Closing Keynote Lecture and Discussion
Revisiting Armennianness: Memorials, State and Folk Rituals in Post-Soviet Armenia
Levon Abrahamian (To be delivered remotely)
Professor and Chair, Department of Contemporary Anthropological Studies
Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, National Academy of Sciences
Yerevan, Armenia
Introduction: Serouj Aprahamian
Assistant Professor
Department of Dance, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
6:00–6:30 Concluding Plenary Discussion
Moderators: Donna A. Buchanan and Maureen E. Marshall