“Memory, Memorialization & Bearing Witness: Contested Memories of the Armenian Genocide in Turkey Today” By Dr. Armen T. Marsoobian

FRESNO — Dr. Armen T. Marsoobian (Southern Connecticut State University) will speak on “Memory, Memorialization & Bearing Witness: Contested Memories of the Armenian Genocide in Turkey Today ” at 7:30PM on Tuesday, September 15, in the University Business Center, Alice Peters Auditorium, Room 191, on the Fresno State campus.

The lecture is part of the Armenian Studies Program Fall 2015 Lecture Series, with the support of the Leon S. Peters Foundation.

Professor Marsoobian will describe his on-going project memorializing the Armenian Genocide in Turkey. The project consists of photography exhibitions in Turkey, two books and the creation of memorial sites related to the story of his mother’s family, the Dildilians, in Ottoman Turkey before, during and after the genocide. Extensive memoirs, oral testimonies and photographs from the Dildilian photographic archive are used to tell this history. Besides describing the project he will analyze the role memorialization plays in collective memory, especially in situations subverted by genocide denial.

Armen T. Marsoobian is Professor and Chair of Philosophy at Southern Connecticut State University. He has lectured and published extensively on topics in philosophy and genocide studies. His most recent book, Fragments of a Lost Homeland: Remembering Armenia, is based upon extensive research about his family, the Dildilians, who were accomplished photographers in the late Ottoman period. Photography exhibitions of the collection have been mounted in Istanbul, Merzifon, and Diyarbakir, and soon in New Haven, London, Ankara, Yerevan, and Watertown. Dildilian Brothers: Photography and the Story of an Armenian Family in Anatolia, 1872-1923, a bilingual English-Turkish photography book, will appear later this year. He has received the Hrant Dink Foundation Prize for Historical Research for his work on the Armenian Genocide.

The lecture is free and open to the public. Free parking is available, using a coupon code #273605, in parking kiosks in Fresno State Lots P5 and P6, near the University Business Center.

For more information about the lecture please contact the Armenian Studies Program at 278-2669, or visit our website at www.fresnostate.edu/armenianstudies.