SAS Publishes Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies, volume 23

FRESNO — The Society for Armenian Studies announces the publication of Volume 23 of the Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies (JSAS), an international peer-reviewed Journal, edited by Dr. Sergio La Porta.

The JSAS includes four articles on Classical and Modern Armenian Studies; five communications; a review essay; and three book reviews.

Volume 23 opens with an article by Zaroui Pogossian on a colophon by the thirteenth-century monastic scholar, Vardan Arewelc’i, which provides testimony for an early Armenian impression of the Mongols and their rule. Bjørn Bandlien analyzes a much-ignored embassy to Norway sent from the Armenian kingdom of Cilicia in 1314. An account of the embassy is preserved in three Icelandic annals.

The section on Modern Armenian Studies begins with a contribution by Houri Berberian that explores the status of Julfan women in mid-eighteenth-century Safavid Iran by examining the Astrakhan Lawcode compiled in the 1760s and some two-dozen letters, petitions, and wills housed in archives in Europe and Iran.

The final article is a study by Hazel Antaramian Hofman of the composition and treatment of figures in fifteen Near East Relief posters. Contextualizing the posters within the efforts of the Near East Relief to provide aid to the “starving Armenians,” she looks at how the artists created images that compelled the viewer to action and resonated with a contemporary American audience.

The communications contained in this volume bring to light new information on a broad array of topics. Rober Hewsen re-examines the Romano-Persian Treaty of Nisibis of 299; while Michael Stone, Doron Ben Ami and Yana Tchekhanovets reveal a new Armenian inscription from the City of David in Jerusalem. Jasmine Dum Tragut discusses her latest research on Armenian manuscripts containing information on horse medicine; and Michael Stone presents the text and an English translation of a poem by Yovhannes Erznkac‘i Pluz. In his communication, Ümit Kurt reflects upon the politics of denial in the Republic of Turkey. Finally, this volume includes a review essay by Christina Maranci on a recently published book in Armenian by Vardan Azatyan on how medieval Armenian art history was presented in German studies of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The past year has been a busy one for the Society of Armenian Studies. SAS celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2014 and held an international Workshop in Armenian Studies in Yerevan in October 3-5, 2014, in cooperation with the Armenian Communities Department of the Calouste Gubenkian Foundation. The Society also convened a conference in Washington, D.C., called “Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in the 19th-20th Centuries, ” November 21-22, 2014.

SAS will hold its 41st Annual Meeting and a conference “Impact of the Armenian Genocide” on November 21, 2015, in Denver, Colorado.

Copies of JSAS may be ordered by contacting the SAS Secretariat at 559-278-2669 or by email at barlowd@csufresno.edu. Individual copies of the Journal are $20 plus shipping. Back issues of JSAS are also available for ordering.

The Secretariat of the Society for Armenian Studies is located at the Armenian Studies Program, California State University, Fresno. The SAS President is Barlow Der Mugrdechian and the SAS website can be found at societyforarmenianstudies.com.