Elyse Semerdjian to Speak at NAASR on “April 24: The Origins of Armenian Genocide Commemoration Day”

BELMONT, MA — The National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR) will host a hybrid (in-person and online) lecture in observance of the 110^th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide by Dr. Elyse Semerdjian of Clark University, titled “April 24: The Origins of Armenian Genocide Commemoration Day,” on Thursday, April 24, 2025, at 7:30 p.m. (Eastern) / 4:30 (Pacific), at the NAASR Vartan Gregorian Building, 395 Concord Ave., Belmont, MA.

This will be an in-person event and also presented online live via Zoom (Registration: https://bit.ly/41Vy0DK) and YouTube (www.youtube.com/c/ArmenianStudies). It is open to all free of charge. There will be a Musical Prelude by pianist Tanya Bartevyan prior to the lecture, and a reception will follow the program.

Semerdjian’s lecture will outline the genesis of Armenian Genocide Commemoration Day on April 24. Beginning with the first official commemoration of Armenian survivors in post-war Istanbul, the lecture will examine both official and unofficial commemoration activities, which will be reconstructed with archival photographs, memoirs, and letters. From the Armenian Genocide Memorial (Tsitsernakaberd) in Yerevan to the efforts to construct the Armenian Genocide Memorial and Holy Martyrs Church in Dayr al-Zur, Semerdjian will offer a history of Armenian memory and ritual activities in the killing fields of the Syrian Desert and beyond.

Dr. Elyse Semerdjian is the Robert Aram and Marianne Kaloosdian and Stephen and Marian Mugar Chair of Armenian Genocide Studies at the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University. She is a social historian of the Ottoman Empire whose research focuses on the experiences of women and the empire’s Armenian subjects. She is the author of “Off the Straight Path”: Illicit Sex, Law, and Community in Ottoman Aleppo (Syracuse University Press, 2008) and Remnants: Embodied Archives of the Armenian Genocide (Stanford University Press, 2023) as well as articles on gender, Ottoman Armenians, urban history, and law in the Ottoman Empire.

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