Discover the vibrant world of Armenian Studies this Fall 2024 and satisfy your Dornsife elective requirements by enrolling in MDA 333 – Colloquium in Armenian Studies: Social and Cultural Issues.  Taught by Institute director Dr. Shushan Karapetian, this 2-unit course, held on Wednesdays from 4:00 – 5:50 PM, offers a unique platform to engage with […]

Los Angeles, CA – April 4, 2024—Hundreds gathered at USC’s Hahn Central Plaza on April 4 for an exhilarating opening ceremony of the inaugural Armenian History Month, marking a monumental moment in the university’s history. USC President Dr. Carol Folt launched Armenian History Month with a resonant speech: “Today we come together as one Trojan […]

The USC Dornsife Institute of Armenian Studies and the USC Armenian Students’ Association are excited to announce this April as the inaugural Armenian History Month at the University of Southern California. This series of month-long events will mark a significant moment in USC’s history, where students, faculty, staff, and community members will come together to honor the […]

USC Dornsife Institute of Armenian Studies and USC Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures co-organized a groundbreaking three-day conference at the USC School of Cinematic Arts about legendary filmmaker and visionary Sergei Parajanov in honor of what would have been his 100th birthday. Titled Parajanov at One Hundred: Chimeras of Nation, Form, and Being, the […]

Gayane Shagoyan and Levon Abrahamian at USC February 27 and February 29 The USC Dornsife Institute of Armenian Studies, USC Department of Anthropology, and USC Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures are excited to invite you to a set of four exclusive lectures at USC by two leading anthropologists from Armenia, Dr. Gayane Shagoyan and […]

USC Dornsife offers two scholarships for continuing undergraduate students of Armenian descent: the Harry and Helen Kalpakian Memorial Scholarship and the Charlie Keyan Scholarship. Harry and Helen Kalpakian Memorial Scholarship Established in 1988 by members of the Kalpakian family as a memorial to their parents, Harry and Helen Kalpakian, this scholarship is awarded to students […]

The Armenian Communities Department of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation will embark on a two-day conversation with the Los Angeles Armenian community. It will take place on the weekend of February 2 and 3, at Hero House in Glendale. Dr. Razmik Panossian, Director of the Armenian Department at Gulbenkian since 2013, will present the Foundation’s projects, […]

Sergei Parajanov at One Hundred: Chimeras of Nation, Form, and Being February 22 to 24 at USC Organized by the USC Dornsife Institute of Armenian Studies and USC Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, this first-of-its-kind conference will bring together scholars from around the world to examine the myriad border crossings and hybridities that characterize […]

The USC Institute of Armenian Studies, USC School of Cinematic Arts, USC Thornton School of Music, Armenian Film Society, and Breakwater Studios, invite you to attend a special theatrical screening of The Last Repair Shop, shortlisted for an Oscar for Best Documentary Short Film. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Academy Award-nominated […]

A message from our Director Dr. Shushan Karapetian.  2023 has been a pivotal year, both for the Armenian world and for our Institute, which focuses on examining the contemporary Armenian experience. We witnessed the complete ethnic cleansing of Armenians from the Armenian homeland of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh), after an illegal blockade that brought the population to […]

On December 5, the USC Dornsife Institute of Armenian Studies, in collaboration with the USC School of Cinematic Arts and Variance Films, hosted a sold-out theatrical screening and panel discussion of Amerikatsi, Armenia’s official Oscar submission for Best International Film.  Due to an overwhelmingly large turnout, the USC School of Cinematic Arts held an additional […]

The USC Dornsife Institute of Armenian Studies, in collaboration with the USC School of Cinematic Arts and Variance Films, will host a special theatrical screening and rare analysis of Amerikatsi — Armenia’s official Oscar submission for Best International Film. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Michael A. Goorjian, the film’s writer, director, […]

USC Dornsife Institute of Armenian Studies welcomes two new team members with an ambition to grow its academic programming and global reach. “There has never been a more important time to invest in the field of Armenian Studies. For an Institute that examines the contemporary Armenian experience, the catastrophic developments in Artsakh and Armenia have […]

Looking for an engaging class to immerse yourself in Armenian heritage, identity, and culture? Don’t know Armenian or Armenian history? No problem! MDA 330, The Armenian Heritage: History, Arts, and Culture course has got you covered! Taught by Institute director Dr. Shushan Karapetian, host of Language Therapy with Dr. K and Word of the Day, MDA 330 explores the major threads […]

The USC Dornsife Institute of Armenian Studies invites you to attend a talk with Simon Maghakyan titled “Abandoned Heritage: Artsakh After the Ethnic Cleansing.” Simon Maghakyan is a Denver-based investigative researcher and cultural heritage defender, PhD candidate in heritage crime at Great Britain’s Defense Academy (Cranfield University), a Visiting Scholar at Tufts University, and an incoming Postdoctoral […]

Travel the world researching all things Armenia and Armenian with the Tufenkian Travel Scholarship!  The USC Dornsife Institute of Armenian Studies is excited to announce that the Tufenkian Travel Scholarship is now OPEN for applications. The scholarship will support student activities and research in contemporary Armenian Studies broadly defined. Research areas include, but are not […]

On Monday, November 13th from 11 AM to 3 PM, the USC Dornsife Institute of Armenian Studies will open its doors for International Education Week. Stop by DMC 351 for an opportunity to explore the contemporary Armenian experience across cultures and academic disciplines.  Meet our staff – who are collecting and digitizing interviews about the unique […]

Last week, nearly the entire population of 120,000 Armenians was forcefully expelled from their ancestral homeland of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh). On September 19, after an inhumane nine-month blockade, which brought the people of Artsakh to the brink of starvation, Azerbaijan launched a full-scale military assault on the civilian population. After thirty years of democratic self-rule under […]

Richard G. Hovannisian was a titan in the field of Armenian Studies - an academic discipline that he shaped with his groundbreaking scholarship and professionalism. He passed away this week, at the age of 90, leaving behind a legacy that is impossible to capture. He lived the life of a public intellectual. He became a [...]

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 [...]

Since diaspora studies emerged in the 1980s, the Armenian dispersion has played a prominent role in the scholarly literature seeking to understand and classify the nature, forms, and effects of diasporas as social formations. Although the notion of diaspora is multifaceted – changing based on the cases observed, criteria retained, disciplinary fields, and its dissemination […]

Focusing on the power of the individual story, USC Dornsife Institute of Armenian Studies “California History through Armenian Experiences” oral history project documents the diversity and history of the Armenian presence in California. The initiative, supported by the California State Library, is part of the Institute’s continued work in collecting primary source material for academic […]

Shushan Karapetian, Ph.D, a celebrated scholar in the field of Armenian Studies, begins her tenure as the director of USC Dornsife Institute of Armenian Studies with a strong mandate for academic expansion and integration.  “The global disruptions of the past decade have deeply impacted how institutions and communities engage with and challenge Armenian heritage, witnessing [...]

LOS ANGELES – Salpi Ghazarian is stepping down as director of the USC Dornsife Institute of Armenian Studies after serving in the role since 2014. She will remain at the Institute and will work on special initiatives.  Dr. Shushan Karapetian, formerly deputy director of the Institute, is the new director as of January 2023.  “Towards […]

Do you want to incorporate Armenian themes and topics into your college experience? Do you want to expand your knowledge about Armenia and Armenians by traveling and conducting research abroad? USC Institute of Armenian Studies announces the 2023 Tufenkian Travel Scholarship to support student activities and research in contemporary Armenian Studies broadly defined. Research areas include, […]

As we in the U.S. enjoy the fireworks and celebrate July 4, we probably don’t think about independence. Armenia doesn’t have that luxury. We know that independence was never a given, at any time during the last 30 years, and even less so in the last few years. Part of assuring independence is understanding it. [...]

The USC Institute of Armenian Studies is on a mission to provide the tools and resources necessary for students, instructors, and researchers in Armenia to enrich their work and integrate more deeply into global academic systems, including universities, conferences, and publications. In April 2022, professors and researchers from three universities in Armenia gathered for phase [...]

“So what do you do everyday?” is what Institute staff are often asked. Here’s a short list: In addition to the research, scholarship, programming, archiving, digitizing, and teaching, a big part of our mission and day-to-day activities involves supporting and mentoring our students. And celebrating their work and accomplishments. Here are some of their ground-breaking achievements this […]

Dr. Shushan Karapetian, Institute Deputy Director, just concluded the fourth semester of teaching Armenian heritage courses at USC. Every semester, the concept of heritage has been framed from a different angle, but of course it always comes back to identity. This semester was no exception. The lens of examination was the situation of the Armenian [...]

 SEE SCHEDULE BELOW   With a mobile studio in a retrofitted food truck, USC Institute of Armenian Studies is traveling throughout Southern California to encourage and invite people to record their life stories. #MyArmenianStory is a  crowd-sourced oral history project that has thus far gathered nearly 100 interviews from around the world. The purpose of [...]

Do you want to incorporate Armenian themes and topics into your college experience? Do you want to expand your knowledge about Armenia and Armenians by traveling and conducting research abroad? USC Institute of Armenian Studies announces the Tufenkian Travel Scholarship to support student activities and research in contemporary Armenian Studies broadly defined. Research areas include, [...]

The USC Institute of Armenian Studies has selected 23 applicants from eight countries to participate in its 2022 research call - THE FUTURE OF KARABAKH. The Institute will provide more than $90,000 in funding to researchers investigating the urgent questions related to the future of regional relations in the South Caucasus and the status of [...]

Seventeen Master’s level students from five universities in Armenia gathered at the USC Tacori Center in Maiakovski village for a MasterClass on the “Social Science Principles and Research Methodologies.” The program took place from January 18-20, 2022, and was the third on the same themes, organized by the University of Southern California Institute of Armenia [...]

The University of Southern California Institute of Armenian Studies invites scholars (Ph.D. candidate and above) worldwide to respond to the call for research on the FUTURE OF KARABAKH. Applications must be submitted by December 29, 2021. Those applications selected for support will receive awards up to $6000. This call aims to tackle the urgent questions [...]

Application deadline: December 29, 2021 Grant award: $2,000-6,000 The 2020 Karabakh (Artsakh) War created new challenges and exacerbated unanswered questions about the future of regional relations and the status of Karabakh / Artsakh. Following the Russia-brokered ceasefire of November 2020 that ended the second Karabakh War, and despite the presence of Russian peacekeepers on the [...]

Cinema After the Collapse   When the announcement was made last week that Armenia’s official selection for the Best International Feature category is Nora Martirosyan’s SHOULD THE WIND DROP, the Institute and our colleagues at USC were thrilled because we had already included this beautiful motion picture in a special film festival we are calling USSR […]

The USC Tacori Center in Mayakovski Village, just outside Yerevan, Armenia, will host its second student MasterClass on August 16-20, entitled “Post-Soviet Armenia and Social Theories.” The program is organized by the USC Institute of Armenian Studies, in collaboration with Dr. Vicken Cheterian and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. The five-day program will be led by […]

Yesterday, California State Assemblymember Adrin Nazarian (D-Sherman Oaks) announced $11 million in state funding for three arts and educational institutions that contribute to cultural growth in the Armenian community and Los Angeles, generally. $1 million allocation to the University of Southern California Institute of Armenian Studies; $9 million to establish a TUMO Center for Creative [...]

Imagine an academic center in Armenia hosting artists, policymakers, scholars, authors, practitioners, scientists from all over Armenia, Artsakh and the world – giving them time and space to work, to learn from each other, and to turn ideas into actions.

The 2020 Karabakh War and the global Covid pandemic have altered the way individuals and institutions in the Diaspora act, and the ways in which they interact with Armenia. But how? To what extent? Have Armenia’s perceptions, too, changed? How did Covid impact other diasporas? Did the war and its aftermath alter how the diaspora-homeland [...]

The USC Institute of Armenian Studies presents ARMENIA AND AZERBAIJAN AT WAR – series of public conversations with scholars, journalists, and government officials. The discussion features high ranking officials from Armenia and Karabakh, in addition to Salpi Ghazarian, Director of the USC Institute of Armenian Studies; Professor Steve Swerdlow of the USC Department of Political Science and International Relations; Dr. Anna Ohanyan, Distinguished Professor at Stonehill College; and Emil Sanamyan, analyst and editor of Institute’s FOCUS ON KARABAH platform.

LOS ANGELES – Seven mid-career professionals from the Armenian government have been USC POLICY FELLOWS. The USC Institute of Armenian Studies program partners with the City of Los Angeles and the office of Councilmember Paul Krekorian to place young Armenian civil servants within City of Los Angeles departments for a three-month work experience that will benefit them and Armenia’s institutional development.

Five recordings of the Sevan Armenian Dance Ensemble have been digitized and included in the Dance Heritage Video Archive at the USC Digital Library. The recordings include Armenian folk dance performances at the International Festival of Performing Arts, at the Music Center, at the Hollywood Bowl Museum and in Yerevan, Armenia in 1992 during the first anniversary celebration of post-Soviet independence.

LOS ANGELES – When the USC Institute of Armenian Studies kicked off the Spring 2020 semester with its largest ever group of undergraduate and graduate student workers, no one knew that they’d spend a good part of the semester working from home.

USC Institute of Armenian Studies announces the Tufenkian Travel Scholarship to support student research in contemporary Armenian Studies or in any other field that requires travel to Armenia. Research areas include, but are not limited to language, cultural studies, economics, sociology, history, regional studies, environmental science, and political science. Comparative and interdisciplinary approaches are encouraged.

To understand the experience and the processes that led to Armenia’s eventual independence from the Soviet Union, the USC Institute of Armenian Studies is embarking on a new documentation and digitization initiative entitled UNDERSTANDING INDEPENDENCE.

In line with its mission to explore and document the contemporary Armenian experience, the USC Institute of Armenian Studies has been engaged in both creating and gathering documents on the unique history of the Armenian Displaced Persons (DP) community formed during and after World War II.

LOS ANGELES – The USC Institute of Armenian Studies has selected 23 applicants from nine countries to participate in its 2019 research call, “From a Democratic Breakthrough to Challenges of Consolidation in Armenia.” The grants will provide an opportunity for scholars and practitioners from around the world to study the current challenges and developments surrounding Armenia, following its political transformation after the “velvet revolution.”

LOS ANGELES – The USC Institute of Armenian Studies has kicked off its third cycle of the USC POLICY FELLOWS PROGRAM, in collaboration with the offices of Los Angeles City Councilmember Paul Krekorian and Los Angeles City Mayor, as well as the Armenian Government through the office of Armenia’s Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinyan.

The USC Institute of Armenian Studies co-sponsored two international conferences in October. The first was entitled “Digital Armenian” and took place in Paris from October 3 to 5. The other was entitled “Diaspora and ‘Stateless Power’: Social Discipline and Identity Formation Across the Armenian Diaspora During the Long Twentieth Century” that took place at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) from October 12 to 13.

SALT LAKE CITY, UT – Syuzanna Petrosyan, Associate Director of the USC Institute of Armenian Studies, and Gegham Mughnetsyan, Chitjian Researcher Archivist, presented Institute’s ongoing oral history projects at the annual Oral History Association conference in Salt Lake City, Utah, on October 17, 2019.

The 11th annual DTLA Film Festival, which is set to run from October 23 to 27 at Regal L.A. LIVE, will be featuring its first Armenian film, with the support of the USC Institute of Armenian Studies.

“The USC Institute of Armenian Studies has been doing outstanding work for 15 years,” said Amber Miller, Dean of USC Dornslife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. “This work is central to one of our key research themes, ‘Identity and Culture in a Changing World.’”

Tucked in between the School of International Relations and the Political Science and Policy departments at USC, the USC Institute of Armenian Studies punches above its weight as it engages with the resources of a global university, and targets the intellectual and strategic needs of the Armenian nation and the Republic of Armenia.

This call aims to provide an opportunity for original academic and policy research that will address Armenia’s political transformation.

What happened when a delegation of high-ranking government officials traveled from Yerevan to Los Angeles to take part in INNOVATE ARMENIA on May 18 at the University of Southern California?

Podcasts have been around for over a decade, and for those who live in cities where traffic is a way of life, they are a lifesaver. The USC Institute of Armenian Studies has three podcast series already and plans several more.

“My ninety-two-year-old mother and I have a ritual of afternoon sourj and listening to her great Armenian stories, same as her and her mother once did.

INNOVATE ARMENIA – the festival of ideas and innovation – took place at the University of Southern California (USC) on May 18, 2019.

The Institute of Armenian Studies at the University of Southern California, in collaboration with the City of Los Angeles and the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister of Armenia, is announcing a call for applications to the USC Policy Fellows Program.

USC Institute of Armenian Studies is proud to welcome Dr. Shushan Karapetian to the position of deputy director. The Institute, which will be celebrating its 15th anniversary later this year, has grown to become one of USC’s most visible and active academic centers.

Unpacking Armenian Studies, hosted by Ghazarian, is home to interviews with academics, journalists and policymakers in the field of – and on the fringes of – Armenian Studies.

The one-of-a-kind festival of ideas, music and action will, as in years past bring together the best from the world of the arts, politics, music, and everything in between from Armenia, Los Angeles, and around the world.

The USC Institute of Armenian Studies has named Gegham Mughnetsyan as the Institute’s Chitjian Researcher Archivist. The naming is in honor of long-time Institute donor, philanthropist and distinguished community member Sara Chitjian.

How can a university support the efforts of a new government? How can the Diaspora participate in Armenia’s development? These are the questions that the USC Institute of Armenian Studies is asking, and a partial answer has been found in a new program called USC POLICY FELLOWS.

USC Institute of Armenian Studies announces the Tufenkian Research Scholarship to support student research in contemporary Armenian Studies.

The Institute of Armenian Studies at the University of Southern California, in collaboration with the City of Los Angeles and the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister of Armenia, is announcing a call for applications to the USC Policy Fellows Program. Only current civil servants within Armenia’s Government (or other government offices) are eligible to apply.

Nearly two hundred supporters and friends of the USC Institute of Armenian Studies gathered at the Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills in appreciation of USC Provost Michael Quick’s and Vice President for Strategic and Global Affairs Anthony Bailey’s travels to Armenia this past spring to open the END OF TRANSITION: 25 YEARS AFTER SOVIET COLLAPSE international conference. This evening of appreciation, which took place on Sunday, November 19, highlighted not only the USC administration’s support of the Institute but also the extensive array of programming and research the Institute has undertaken in 2017.

In the framework of the Los Angeles—Yerevan Sister City relationship, the USC Institute of Armenian Studies has initiated the POLICY FELLOWS PROGRAM, in collaboration with the office of Los Angeles City Councilmember Paul Krekorian and the office of Armenia’s Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinyan.

As Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s face filled the screen, the Bovard audience surged to its feet. Acknowledging the standing ovation with a warm smile, the charismatic journalist-turned-parliamentarian shyly waved his hand.

One particular client was selling tickets to training events. For each ticket sold we needed to get information on the person who would be using the ticket. We used a custom field called registrant to hold this information.

Saturday was a day to celebrate the Armenian diaspora in all its multicultural splendor — as USC welcomed INNOVATE ARMENIA 2017.

Hovig Etyemezian is only 35, but he has witnessed suffering most people couldn’t imagine in their worst nightmares.

Vordan Karmir, a vibrant and powerful presence in Armenian music, will be headlining INNOVATE ARMENIA on September 23, 2016, at the USC campus. The band is named after an Armenian cochineal insect — a worm — that produced what became known as “the Armenian color.” A deep, striking shade of crimson red, the Vordan Karmir dye became an alluring and popular commodity among the peoples of the ancient world.

If Paul Berberian had his way, kindergarteners would start coding as soon as they could count to 10 and recite the alphabet.

Orlando Carlo Calumeno collects postcards. Not just any postcards, but Anatolian postcards printed between 1895 and 1921. Mementos of a halcyon time and place completely scrubbed from memory by genocide.

What does it mean to be Armenian in America? Is it possible to thrive with both identities, or must Armenian-Americans choose? The Ignatius brothers tackle these and other thorny issues in lively conversation at USC.

On Saturday, September 23, poet Peter Balakian and novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen will grapple with the shifting place of humanities in a postmodern and possibly “post-book” world. Their conversation is a signature event at INNOVATE ARMENIA 2017—a day of discovery, insightful dialogue, music, food, wine and chess sponsored by USC’s Institute of Armenian Studies.

THE USC INSTITUTE OF ARMENIAN STUDIES presents a one-of-a-kind installation of extremely rare postcards from Anatolia, displayed alongside scenes from many of the same locations captured a century later.

ON SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, the USC Institute of Armenian Studies presents INNOVATE ARMENIA 2017, a day of discovery, technology, music, food, wine, chess and lively conversation headlined by a pair of celebrity-journalist brothers and two 2016 Pulitzer Prize winners.

Undeliverable: Postcards and Photos of Lives Interrupted was a one-of-a-kind exhibition of rare depictions of Armenian life from turn-of-the-20th-century Ottoman Empire combined with pictures taken a century later by a Brazilian-Armenian photographer. Organized by the Institute of Armenian Studies at the University of Southern California (USC), the images were exhibited from August 18, 2017 to January 31, 2018 at USC Doheny Memorial Library.

Undergraduate and graduate students from across the United States and Canada gathered in Los Angeles on two different weekends to focus on the contemporary Armenian experience and think about Armenian issues in multi-layered and thoughtful ways.

Six hundred people came to the University of Southern California to hear scholars and experts talk about the challenges of electoral politics everywhere, and especially in Armenia. Five political scientists, five artists, and three practitioners from six locations spoke about the realities and challenges of democratization. Their message resonated with the capacity crowd at USC’s Bovard Auditorium who interrupted with applause more than a dozen times during the CELEBRITY DIPLOMACY program hosted by USC Institute of Armenian Studies.

Dr. Tom Catena, a Catholic missionary and the only resident physician practicing under harrowing conditions in the Nuba Mountains in southern Sudan, will be at USC on Tuesday, February 5, for a wide range of programs.