UCLA Armenian Studies Graduate Student Colloquium

The deadline is September 30th @ 11:59 pm Los Angeles time

Call for Papers - Near Eastern Languages & Cultures - UCLA 21st Annual Graduate Student Colloquium in Armenian Studies University of California, Los Angeles, February 16th 2024 The UCLA Graduate Student Colloquium in Armenian Studies Committee invites current graduate students and...

21st ANNUAL GRADUATE STUDENT COLLOQUIUM IN ARMENIAN STUDIES

University of California, Los Angeles, February 16th 2024 (IN-PERSON)

APPLICATION DEADLINE: September 30th, 2023, by 11:59pm (PST). To submit your proposal, please visit https://nelc.ucla.edu/conference/agsc/call-for-papers/
For more information, please visit https://nelc.ucla.edu/conference/call-for-papers/

Call for Papers - Near Eastern Languages & Cultures - UCLA 21st Annual Graduate Student Colloquium in Armenian Studies University of California, Los Angeles, February 16th 2024 The UCLA Graduate Student Colloquium in Armenian Studies Committee invites current graduate students and...

Call for Papers

Sergei Parajanov at One Hundred: Chimeras of Nation, Form, and Being

February 22-24, 2024
University of Southern California

In his interview with Ron Holloway, Parajanov proclaimed that he was a chimera, a being inscrutable to others but also uniquely able to look ahead and beyond all constraints. The chimera, a mythological figure comprising parts of different bodies, emblematizes both the possibilities of imagination and the impossibility of categorization and control. It poses a challenge to homogeneity, fixity, swift legibility and intelligibility by re-constellating the known to produce aesthetic wonders that are always in excess of the sensible. A slap in the face of propriety and pure reason, a blow to scientific and epistemological certainty, the chimera boldly transcends limiting constructions and strictures. And for those very same reasons, the chimera is often subject to suspicion, fear, and persecution.

Drawing inspiration from Parajanov’s description of himself as a chimera, this centennial conference aims to examine the myriad border crossings and hybridities that characterize his life and oeuvre. Born January 9, 1924 in Tbilisi, Georgia to Armenian parents, Parajanov worked at Dovzhenko Film Studio, Armenfil’m, and Georgia Film Studio, all while navigating the complexities of the Soviet film industry. While his early work can be said to fit the requirements of socialist realism, Parajanov’s later films mark a radical departure from the dominant culture. Mining a variety of folkloric, literary, artistic, and cinematic traditions, the auteur’s filmic worlds resist spatial and temporal determinacy as well as national and imperial borders. While the painterly quality of his cinema stalls the sense of temporal progression in his films, it simultaneously proposes alternative sources of dynamism. A playful variation on the paradoxical coexistence of stillness and motion in cinema, Parajanov’s tableaux invite the spectator’s wandering gaze to explore the exuberance of each frame, treasure the movement within each shot and observe inanimate objects come to life with the help of editing and sound. Through the multiplicity of both spatial and temporal points of view offered by the inverted perspective, the filmmaker’s images do not only challenge the distinction between passive and active spectatorship, immobile subjects and moving objects, but posit the impossibility of a coherent subject altogether as they reveal the fluidity of such constructs as ethnicity, gender, and agency.

We are particularly interested in proposals that examine the multinational and transnational dimensions of his work, as well as his ambivalent relationship to the Soviet empire. As ethnographic imaginaries, the films and collages invite consideration of Parajanov’s appropriation and remediation of myths, folklore, and poetry as well as textiles, paintings, and sculpture. Additional topics include, but are not limited to, the following as they relate to the filmmaker’s oeuvre and lived experience:

▪ Empire, nation, and the supranational
▪ Violence, trauma, and death
▪ Socialist realism and Soviet ideology
▪ Unrealized screenplays and other written material
▪ Intermediality and multimediality (film, painting, collage)
▪ Visual storytelling and perspective
▪ Questions of animacy, agency, and spectatorship
▪ Gender queerness
▪ Tension between sound and silence
▪ Split temporalities and anachronisms
▪ New languages and critical paradigms for discussing hybridity
▪ Parajanov’s artistic legacy


Please submit 250-word proposals and a brief bio/short CV by September 15, 2023 using the online form. Limited financial assistance may be available for scholars without institutional support. Please send any questions to [email protected].

Organizing Committee:
Dr. Shushan Karapetian, Director, USC Armenian Studies Institute
Dr. Aniko Imre, Professor, USC School of Cinematic Arts
Dr. Colleen McQuillen, Associate Professor, USC Slavic Department
Dr. Ellina Sattarova, Assistant Professor, USC Slavic Department
Simon Garibyan, Ph.D. Student, USC Slavic Department

Thursday April 6th @ 7pm PST

Armenian Seminar in Armenian Language

Gayane Shagoyan, Senior Researcher at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography at the NAS of RA

"Հայակական Հարսանիքն Անցումային Շրջանում // Armenian Wedding in Transition"

The proceedings will be in ARMENIAN

The Armenian Genocide Research Program at The Promise Armenian Institute at UCLA, the Center for the Study of Law and Genocide at LMU Loyola Law School, and the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research - NAASR (NAASR) present the first-ever conference pertaining to the Restitution.

Join us on Saturday, March 25, as we explore questions such as: what are the possibilities of creating an Armenian Genocide movement post-recognition? What opportunities does the American legal system offer for reparation? Can the Holocaust movement serve as a model for the Armenian Genocide?

For event details and to register for in-person attendance or participation via Zoom visit bit.ly/whatsnext03-25-23

This conference is co-sponsored by the Armenian Bar Association, the Promise Institute for Human Rights at UCLA School of Law, and the Ararat Eskijian Museum.

Please join us for the 20th Annual UCLA Graduate Student Colloquium in Armenian Studies!

This year's conference will take place virtually on two different days: February 18th and February 20th at 10am PST.

To register, please follow the links below:
https://bit.ly/armcolloquiumfeb18
https://bit.ly/armcolloquiumfeb25

Save the Date!

This year's colloquium will take place on two Saturdays in February: the 18th and the 25th.

More details to come including the panel information and zoom links.

The Promise Armenian Institute at UCLA
National Association for Armenian Studies and Research - NAASR
ARPA Institute

Call for Papers - Near Eastern Languages & Cultures - UCLA 20th Annual Graduate Student Colloquium in Armenian Studies University of California, Los Angeles, February 2023 The UCLA Graduate Student Colloquium in Armenian Studies Committee invites current graduate students and recent...

Call for Papers
20th Annual Graduate Student Colloquium in Armenian Studies

University of California, Los Angeles, February 2023

The UCLA Graduate Student Colloquium in Armenian Studies Committee invites current graduate students and recent graduates (MA or Ph.D within the last two years) to present their research at the 20th Annual Graduate Student Colloquium in Armenian Studies in February 2023. Research papers will be accepted on all aspects of Armenian studies, including but not limited to language, literature, history, gender studies, sociology, anthropology, economics, and art history. Papers that make use of comparative themes and interdisciplinary approaches are particularly encouraged.

The colloquium format this year will be an online webinar. All presentations and discussions will take place in an online format and will be scheduled on each of the four Fridays in February 2023.

Applicants are asked to submit an abstract of no more than 250 words and a curriculum vitae by December 31st, 2022.

For more information, please visit https://nelc.ucla.edu/conference/agsc/call-for-papers/

__________Call for Papers__________
20th Annual Graduate Student Colloquium in Armenian Studies

University of California, Los Angeles, February 2023

The UCLA Graduate Student Colloquium in Armenian Studies Committee invites current graduate students and recent graduates (MA or Ph.D within the last two years) to present their research at the 20th Annual Graduate Student Colloquium in Armenian Studies in February 2023. Research papers will be accepted on all aspects of Armenian studies, including but not limited to language, literature, history, gender studies, sociology, anthropology, economics, and art history. Papers that make use of comparative themes and interdisciplinary approaches are particularly encouraged.

The colloquium format this year will be an online webinar. All presentations and discussions will take place in an online format and will be scheduled on each of the four Fridays in February 2023.

Applicants are asked to submit an abstract of no more than 250 words and a curriculum vitae by December 31st, 2022.

For more information, please visit

Call for Papers - Near Eastern Languages & Cultures - UCLA 20th Annual Graduate Student Colloquium in Armenian Studies University of California, Los Angeles, February 2023 The UCLA Graduate Student Colloquium in Armenian Studies Committee invites current graduate students and recent...