The University of California, Irvine’s Center for Armenian Studies will host a one-day international symposium titled “New Diasporas for an Old Diaspora: Armenian Hybrid Communities in the 21st Century” on Saturday, May 2, at Humanities Gateway 1030.
The symposium launches a conversation about Armenian diasporic formations that have emerged over the past fifty years—formations shaped by secondary migrations, conflicts and precarities in diaspora homelands, post-colonial and post-socialist histories, geopolitics, and new global circuits of labor and culture.
Moving beyond the dominant “classic diaspora” model rooted in the post-genocide era, the symposium examines how Armenian life today is organized through layered, hybrid, and emergent worlds that coexist within both shared and separate spaces while carrying distinct historical and cultural trajectories.
Bringing together international scholars from across disciplines, the event takes Southern California as one critical site among others, inviting participants to rethink the Armenian diaspora as a recursive, adaptive, and future-oriented condition.
The program features two thematic panels focusing on Armenian diasporas in California and emerging global communities, culminating in a roundtable discussion.
This symposium is free and open to the public. Program will begin at 9:30, coffee and light refreshments will be served.
The UCI Center for Armenian Studies extends its gratitude to its co-sponsors: UC Irvine Departments of History, Comparative Literature, and Global and International Studies; the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research; the Society for Armenian Studies; and Armenian Communities Department of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.
Click here to view symposium program.
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