Diaspora and ‘Stateless Power’: Social Discipline and Identity Formation Across the Armenian Diaspora during the Long Twentieth Century. A Conference in Honor of Khachig Tölölyan
Call for Papers:
Diaspora and ‘Stateless Power’: Social Discipline and Identity Formation Across the Armenian Diaspora during the Long Twentieth Century
A Conference in Honor of Khachig Tölölyan
Marking the 45th Anniversary of the Society for Armenian Studies (SAS)
UCLA, October 12-13, 2019
The Society for Armenian Studies (SAS) is marking the 45th Anniversary of its founding by holding a two-day International Conference in honor of Khachig Tölölyan at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) on October 12-13, 2019. The conference is co-sponsored by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, the Richard Hovannisian Endowed Chair in Modern Armenian History (UCLA), the Narekatsi Chair in Armenian Studies (UCLA), the Meghrouni Family Presidential Chair (University of California, Irvine), the Institute of Armenian Studies (University of Southern California), and the Armenian Studies Program (California State University, Fresno).
Conference Abstract:
Over the last few decades, scholarship on transnational social formations known as diasporas and their complex workings of power have proliferated across western academia in part due to the pioneering work of Khachig Tölölyan, a leading theorist of diasporas and foundational scholar of the Armenian diaspora. Dedicated to Tölölyan’s continued influence in the field of diasporan studies, this conference focuses on the exercise of what he has called “stateless power,” and indeed of “governmentality,” in the formation of the Armenian diaspora during the long twentieth century. The conference explores the nexus of diaspora and stateless power in the making of Armenian communities outside the “homeland.” How did various diasporan elites and their institutions deploy “stateless power” to impose forms of social discipline to generate a sense of corporate identity, belonging, and loyalty among Armenians in a state of dispersion and diaspora? In what ways did diasporan governmentality create divergent and alternative paths of belonging to (nation-)statist ones pursued under Soviet rule? In addressing questions like these, the conference privileges the study of forms of “social discipline,” cultural and literary production, and community organizations in far flung sites of the Armenian diaspora as Istanbul, Aleppo, Beirut, Jerusalem, Paris, and Los Angeles among others. In addition to probing the history of the Armenian diaspora through novel perspectives, the conference also seeks to interrogate how diasporan history and practice can help re-conceptualize and illuminate traditional understandings of social discipline and non-state forms of power and governmentality.
Scholars in the field are hereby invited to submit proposals (300 words in length) dealing with questions raised in the conference abstract to Bedross Der Matossian at bdermatossian2@unl.edu. The deadline of submission is June 1, 2019. A committee appointed by SAS will review the abstracts and notify the applicants of its decision by June 20, 2019. Travel and accommodation of accepted papers will be covered by the SAS and the co-sponsors.
The proceedings of the conference are going to be published in an edited volume. Hence, scholars presenting at the conference are expected to submit a rough draft of their paper with the length of 20-25 pages no later than October 7, 2019.
Organizing Committee
Jesse Arlen
Sebouh Aslanian
Houri Berberian
Talar Chahinian
Peter Cowe
Bedross Der Matossian
Barlow Der Mugrdechian
Dzovinar Derderian
Salpi Ghazarian
Razmik Panossian
Vahe Sahakyan
Sona Tajirian
