Transmitting Western Armenian to the Next Generation
Call for Papers
The Society for Armenian Studies (SAS) will hold its annual conference in Washington, D.C. on November 18, 2017. The conference, sponsored by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, will take place in conjunction with the Annual Meeting of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA), at the Washington, D.C. Marriott Wardman Park Hotel, November 18-21, 2017.
The theme of the SAS conference will be “Transmitting Western Armenian to the Next Generation.”
The conference will be composed of two panels:
1) “Teaching Armenian in a Diasporan Context”
2) “Western Armenian in the Digital Age”
Panel 1) “Teaching Armenian in a Diasporan Context” During the last several years teachers of Armenian, particularly in the United States, have confronted the challenges in teaching the modern language. Concrete theoretical and practical problems need to be formulated and explored and innovative methodology needs to be developed. A study of the efficacy in teaching Armenian in schools and/or at the college level would also be beneficial to determine the status of Armenian in those settings and steps to be followed.
Panel 2) “Western Armenian in the Digital Age” The presence of Western Armenian on the Internet and on digital formats has grown over the past few years. The first applications and software have also been produced. Fact based assessments of the quality and quantity of that work and the relation to actual needs of the “market,” including a correlation with Western Armenian teaching, are imperative. Papers on the best ways to incorporate technology into teaching Western Armenian would be beneficial.
It is important to emphasize the fact that SAS is not only interested in an exchange of ideas regarding these vital issues and the challenges facing Western Armenian, but is also interested in making concrete recommendations about these two themes.The outcomes of these papers will be published in an edited volume either in the peer-reviewed Journal of Society for Armenian Studies (JSAS) or in a relevant press.
A Conference Program
“Transmitting Western Armenian to the Next Generation”
November 18, 2017
Marriott Wardman Park Hotel Washington, D.C.
12:00pm-3:00pm, Virginia B (L)
Opening Remarks
Barlow Der Mugrdechian (SAS President)
(California State University, Fresno)
SESSION I: Teaching Armenian in a Dias poran Context
12:00pm-1:15pm
Chair: Myrna Douzjian (University of California, Berkeley)
“It Takes a Village to Raise a… Language”
Ani Garmiryan
(Armenian Communities Dept., Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation)
“For a multilingual approach in teaching Modern Western Armenian in the Diaspora”
Sylvia Kasparian
(Université de Moncton, Canada)
“Ո՞ւր են բանալիներդ-An Innovatative Method for Teaching Western Armenian in the Diaspora”
Jesse Arlen
(University of California, Los Angeles)
SESSION II: Creatative Literacy and Heritatage Language:
The Case of Western Armenian
1:30pm-3:00pm
Chair: Barlow Der Mugrdechian (California State University, Fresno)
“Promoting‘ Creatative Literacy’”
Hagop Gulludjian
(University of California, Los Angeles)
“Eastern Armenian Speakers as Potential Western Armenian Learners: Reflections on Second Dialect Acquisition”
Shushan Karapetian
(University of California, Los Angeles)
“‘While I make a poem, I am being made by poetry’: Creatative Writing in Heritatage Language Instruction”
Elizabeth Mkhitarian
(University of California, Los Angeles)
Concluding Remarks
Vartan Matiossian (SAS Vice-President)
(Armenian National Education Committee, New York)
*All sessions are free and open to the public.
No registration is required