Sebouh Aslanian to Present “Early Modernity and Mobility” in Hybrid Event at NAASR Center

BELMOMT, NJ — The National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR) will host an in-person and online lecture by Prof. Sebouh D. Aslanian on his new publication “Early Modernity and Mobility: Port Cities and Printers Across the Armenian Diaspora, 1512-1800,” on Tuesday, October 31, 2023, at 7:30 p.m. (Eastern) / 4:30 (Pacific), at the NAASR Vartan Gregorian Building, 395 Concord Ave., Belmont, MA.

The program will be presented as the 4th Annual Prof. Charles B. Garabedian Lecture at NAASR and is co-sponsored by the Mashtots Chair in Armenian Studies at Harvard University and the Society for Armenian Studies (SAS).

This will be an in-person event and also presented online live via Zoom (Registration: https://bit.ly/NAASR-Aslanian) and YouTube (www.youtube.com/c/ArmenianStudies).

Early Modernity and Mobility (Yale University Press, 2023) explores the disparate yet connected histories of Armenian printing establishments in early modern Europe and Asia. From 1512, when the first Armenian printed codex appeared in Venice, to the end of the early modern period in 1800, Armenian presses operated in nineteen locations across the Armenian diaspora.

Drawing on extensive archival research, Aslanian explores why certain books were published at certain times, how books were sold across the diaspora, who read them, and how the printed word helped fashion a new collective identity for early modern Armenians. In examining the Armenian print tradition Aslanian tells a larger story about the making of the diaspora itself.

Dr. Sebouh David Aslanian is professor and Richard Hovannisian Endowed Chair in Modern Armenian History at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is the author of From the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean: The Global Trade Networks of Armenian Merchants from New Julfa (2011) and has published in many leading scholarly journals.

Early Modernity and Mobility is available for purchase from the NAASR Bookstore.

Professor Charles B. Garabedian (1917-1991) was born in Everett, Mass., and graduated magna cum laude from Everett High School and Tufts University (A.B. English and History).  He attended Harvard Law School and graduated magna cum laude from Boston University Law School. During World War II he served in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), and in the late 1940s he began his teaching career at Suffolk University Law School.  His expertise was tort litigation and damages, courses which he continuously taught at Suffolk University Law School for over 40 years.  At the time of his death, Professor Garabedian was the Senior Faculty Professor at Suffolk University Law School.  The annual lecture in his memory has been established at NAASR by Prof. Garabedian’s niece, NAASR Board Member Joan E. Kolligian.

For more information about this program, contact NAASR at hq@naasr.org.