Lecture: Print as Dialogue Medium on Corporate Identity between the Diaspora and Armenian Plateau in the 17th-18th Centuries, AUA

Dr. Peter Cowe Narekatsi Chair of Armenian Studies Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, UCLA  

Hosted by The President's Office 

Monday, October 27 6:00 PM 

40 Marshal Baghramyan Ave. Yerevan 0019/ Alex & Marie Manoogian Hall Paramaz Avedisian Building

(+374 60) 69 40 40 info@aua.am  www.aua.am 

 

 

 

Building on insights from Eisenstein regarding the impact of print and Smith and Gellner on the nationalist gestation process, this lecture seeks to demonstrate that by the 17th century Armenian diasporic life in cosmopolitan entrepots over the Eurasian hemisphere forged a novel ethnic inclusiveness among the merchant class. This mutuality is reflected in the discourse of ethnic affiliation expressed in printers' colophons, establishing affinities with readers through myths of common origin from Hayk, eponymous progenitor of the Armenians. This is then reinforced by published works, like that of the historian Movs6s Xorenac`i, whose narrative presents the received account of Armenia's early history. This lecture posits an ideological shift in print rhetoric from ethnic solidarity in the 17' century to reconstituting a state in the 18', predicating the transformation on the incipient movement toward global integration that constituted the matrix of the nation state.
About the speaker: Dr. Peter Cowe is a Professor of Armenian Language and Culture at the University of California, Los Angeles. In 1975 he received his M.A. in Classics with first class honors. In 1983 he received his M.A. in Armenology and subsidiary Theology from the University of Oxford, Mansfield College. From 1980-81, as part of his studies at the State University of Yerevan, he conducted manuscript research at the Matenadaran Institute for the Preservation and Study of Ancient Manuscripts. In 1983 Dr. Cowe received his Ph.D. in Armenology from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he also was a lecturer in Armenian Studies from 1983-84. In 1996 Dr. Cowe became Professor of Armenian Studies at UCLA. In 2000 he was appointed as the holder of the Grigor Narekatsi Chair in Armenian Language and Culture at UCLA.