Tag: Armenian Culture

AUA Co-Founder and President Emeritus Armen Der Kiureghian in conversation with Jesse Arlen this Wednesday Oct 22nd

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The Zohrab Center warmly invites you to an in-person conversation between AUA co-founder and President Emeritus Armen Der Kiureghian with Jesse Arlen this Wednesday, October 22nd at 7:00pm, based on Dr. Der Kiureghian’s recent book From Earthquake to Tragedy to Beacon of Light: The Story of the American University of Armenia.

Copies of the book may be ordered here and will also be available for purchase at the event.

Armen Der Kiureghian is President Emeritus of the American University of Armenia and Taisei Professor of Civil Engineering Emeritus of the University of California, Berkeley. He was born in New Julfa, Isfahan, Iran, and attended local Armenian schools. He received his BS and MS degrees in Civil Engineering from Tehran University and his PhD in Structural Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His teaching and research are in the areas of risk and reliability of constructed facilities, stochastic structural dynamics, earthquake engineering, and engineering decision making. He has authored more than 400 publications, including over 130 in archival journals. Among other awards, he is a recipient of the American Society of Civil Engineer’s Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize, Alfred M. Freudenthal Medal, Thomas A. Middlebrooks Award, and George Winter Medal. For his efforts in advancing education in Armenia, he was awarded the Movses Khorenatsi Medal by the Government of Armenia and the Saint Sahak-Saint Mesrob Medal by His Holiness Garegin II, Catholicos of All Armenians. Der Kiureghian is a Distinguished Alumnus of both Tehran University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, an elected foreign member of the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia, and an elected member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering.

Upcoming Fall In-Person Book Presentations at the Zohrab Center: Oct 7, Oct 22, Nov 20

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We are looking forward to our Fall in-person events at the Zohrab Center, featuring three authors presenting their recent books.

For details and flyers, see below:

To read more about Katia Karageuzian and her book click here.

To read more bout Armen Der Kiureghian and his book click here.

To read more about Ben Alexander and his book click here.

Book presentation on 20th century Armenian American Culture and Politics by Dr. Ben Alexander (Nov 20)

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The Zohrab Center warmly invites you to a book presentation with Dr. Ben Alexander on Thursday, November 20th at 7:00pm, who will present his book Ararat in America: Armenian American Culture and Politics in the Twentieth Century. Copies of the book may be ordered here and will also be available for purchase at the event. All are warmly invited to attend!

The contents of the book relate directly to the history of the Diocese of the Armenian Church and the Armenian American community of New York and the East Coast in general, and much of the research for the book was conducted in the Zohrab Center itself, which is warmly acknowledged by Dr. Alexander at the outset of the book.

Table of Contents

List of Figures
List of Maps
Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. The Contested Homeland: World War I and the Genocide
2. Years of Adjustment: Armenian Americans in the 1920s
3. The Tourian Affair: Contested Memories and an Archbishop’s Murder
4. “To Supply Armenia with Architects”: The Coming-of-Age of the American-Born Generations
5. Fighting on Many Fronts: World War II and Its Aftermath
6. The Armenian Americans’ Cold War
7. A House of God Divided: The Formalization of the Church Split
8. The Power of a Word: Naming and Claiming the Genocide

Bibliography
Epilogue
Index

Book presentation on AUA with Armen Der Kiureghian in-person on October 22nd

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The Zohrab Center warmly invites you to a book presentation and signing with Armen Der Kiureghian on Wednesday, October 22nd at 7:00pm, who will present his book From Earthquake to Tragedy to Beacon of Light: The Story of the American University of Armenia. Copies of the book may be ordered here and will also be available for purchase at the event.

Armen Der Kiureghian is President Emeritus of the American University of Armenia and Taisei Professor of Civil Engineering Emeritus of the University of California, Berkeley. He was born in New Julfa, Isfahan, Iran, and attended local Armenian schools. He received his BS and MS degrees in Civil Engineering from Tehran University and his PhD in Structural Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His teaching and research are in the areas of risk and reliability of constructed facilities, stochastic structural dynamics, earthquake engineering, and engineering decision making. He has authored more than 400 publications, including over 130 in archival journals. Among other awards, he is a recipient of the American Society of Civil Engineer’s Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize, Alfred M. Freudenthal Medal, Thomas A. Middlebrooks Award, and George Winter Medal. For his efforts in advancing education in Armenia, he was awarded the Movses Khorenatsi Medal by the Government of Armenia and the Saint Sahak-Saint Mesrob Medal by His Holiness Garegin II, Catholicos of All Armenians. Der Kiureghian is a Distinguished Alumnus of both Tehran University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, an elected foreign member of the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia, and an elected member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering.

Register today for the Badarak Reading Course!

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The Zohrab Center warmly invites you to sign up for “Խորհուրդ Խորին / Mystery Profound” a Գրաբար reading course to take place Mondays 2:00–4:00pm ET from September 8th to December 15th via Zoom. Don’t miss this opportunity to understand the Holy Badarak (Divine Liturgy) in its original language.

Registered participants only will receive course materials and access to the recordings of the Zoom sessions. Register for the course at this Zoom registration link.

The course will be led by Zohrab Center director Dr. Jesse Arlen and will focus on the hymns, chants, and prayers of the Divine Liturgy of the Armenian Church (Ս. Պատարագ), including hymn verses not commonly sung in contemporary practice as well as prayers of the Eucharistic service, said silently by the celebrant.

Participants will also have the opportunity to read from manuscript missals (Խորհրդատետր) containing the text of the Divine Liturgy.

In order to benefit from the course, participants should be able to comfortably read the Armenian alphabet and have some prior experience with classical or modern Armenian.

Գրաբար Reading Course on the Divine Liturgy of the Armenian Church (Ս. Պատարագ)

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The Zohrab Center warmly invites you to sign up for “Խորհուրդ Խորին / Mystery Profound” a Գրաբար reading course to take place Mondays 2:00–4:00pm ET from September 8th to December 15th via Zoom.

The course will be led by Zohrab Center director Dr. Jesse Arlen and will focus on the hymns, chants, and prayers of the Divine Liturgy of the Armenian Church (Ս. Պատարագ), including hymn verses not commonly sung in contemporary practice as well as prayers of the Eucharistic service, said silently by the celebrant.

Participants will also have the opportunity to read from manuscript missals (Խորհրդատետր) containing the text of the Divine Liturgy.

In order to benefit from the course, participants should be able to comfortably read the Armenian alphabet and have some prior experience with classical or modern Armenian.

Register for the course at this Zoom registration link.

For questions about the course, email zohrabcenter@armeniandiocese.org

Dr. Jesse Arlen to speak at St. Elizabeth University’s Evening to Honor and Remember the Armenian Genocide

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On April 24th, 2025 at 6:30pm in the Dolan Auditorium in the Annunciation Center of Saint Elizabeth University Campus in Morristown, New Jersey, an evening of remembrance will be held in commemoration of the Armenian Genocide.

Beautiful Armenian music will be provided by Sarita Maldjian and her children, along with a buffet of various traditional foods.

The program, which is free and open to the public, will feature Dr. Jesse Arlen as the keynote speaker with his lecture, “Creating Culture after Cultural Genocide: 110 Years Later”.

The program is hosted by St. Elizabeth University’s Center for Holocaust and Genocide Education  with special thanks to the Dadourian Foundation, Roy Stepanian, and Vartan Abdo.

For more information, visit the Center’s event page.

May 13, Book Release: Aram’s Notebook by Maria Àngels Anglada: A Presentation and Signing by the Book’s Translator Ara H. Merjian

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On Tuesday, May 13th at 7:00pm in Yerevan Room at the Diocesan Complex, the Zohrab Center will host a book presentation by NYU professor of Italian studies, Ara H. Merjian, translator of Aram’s Notebook (Swan Isle Press / University of Chicago Press, 2024), a novel based on the Armenian Genocide, originally written in Catalan. Prof. Merjian will speak about the novel, after which there will be a Q&A and book signing, with copies of the book available for sale at the event.

Ara H. Merjian is professor of Italian Studies at New York University, where he is an affiliate of the Institute of Fine Arts and the Department of Art History. He is a member of the College of Professors in the Department of History, University of Milan, and the author of Giorgio de Chirico and the Metaphysical City: Nietzsche, Modernism, Paris and Blueprints and Ruins: Giorgio de Chicrico and the Architectural Imagination from the Avant-Gardes to Postmodernism, both from Yale University Press.

Arin Shahjahanian’s composition Յղի [Hghi] (2024) featuring the poetry of Tenny Arlen wins Second Prize at Mansurian International Competition in Armenia

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Los Angeles composer and pianist Arin Shahjahanian‘s composition Յղի [Hghi] (“Pregnant”), written for soprano, voice, clarinet, and piano (2024) and featuring the poetry of Tenny Arlen, recently was awarded Second Prize at the Mansurian International Competition in Yerevan, Armenia.

The U.S. premiere of the award-winning piece will take place at the Hear Now Music Festival in Los Angeles on May 18th.

 

The text of the piece is derived from Tenny Arlen’s poem «Մերելածին», [mereladzin] or “Stillborn”, from her collection To Say with Passion: Why Am I Here? (Yerevan: ARI Literature Foundation, 2021). The title and the refrain «Յղի» [hghi] translate to “pregnant.”

In Armenian:

Ես եմ
անկարողութիւնը։
Մէջս կը կրեմ զայն,
բառերու կողով մը անխօս,
[…]
Յղի,
կեանք մը կը կազմուի բառերու—
ոչ ինչպէս հարկ էր ըլլար։
Ծայրանդամներ, չպատմուած ծագում
—ծուռ, սուր ակռաներ—
քսան ծիրանագոյն ոտնամատ:
Բերքը վիժելը
միտքը փոխել չէ։
[…]
Ահա կը շնչեմ, ահա կը կ՛ըմպեմ, ահա
եմ։
[…]
[Յղի]
[…]
[…] կեանք տալով մեռեալին,
մոռցուելիքին,
մտաբերում մարդկութեան։
Կը հասկնա՞ս
ասիկա։
[…]
[…] բերքս—
մեռեալ է ծնած։
Եւ—ես եմ—ընծայուած—
անձայն։

In English:

I am
the inability.
I carry it in me,
a basket of unspoken words,
[…]
Pregnant,
A life of words is forming—
not as it should be.
Limbs, unaccounted spring
—crooked, sharp teeth—
twenty apricot-colored toes.
To abort the growth
is not to unthink.
[…]
Here I breathe, here I drink, here
I am.
[…]
[Pregnant]
[…]
[…] giving life to the dead,
The would be forgotten,
evocation of humanity.
Do you understand
this?
[…]
[…] my growth—
is stillborn.
And—I am—rendered—
silent.

Premiered June, 2024
Yerevan, Armenia

Shahane Aghakaryan, soprano
Arsen Grigoryan – clarinet
Anahit Dilbaryan – piano

In-Person Event with architect Ronald Altoon on March 30th after Badarak

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The Zohrab Center cordially invites you to an in-person event jointly hosted by St. Vartan Cathedral after Badarak on Sunday, March 30th. Architect Ronald Altoon will be presenting his work on churches and monasteries of Armenia to be featured in a forthcoming book.

A former National President of The American Institute of Architects, Ronald Altoon (https://altoon.com/) is an internationally recognized architect with numerous awards for design excellence.  He has planned or implemented projects totaling over 225 million square feet constructed in the United States and in 46 foreign countries.  Besides serving on multiple university, civic, cultural, and philanthropic boards, he has taught at USC and UCLA and has lectured at many other prominent universities.  He is author of seven books on design as well as one currently in final editing, Monasteries and Churches of Ancient Armenia.

A third generation American Armenian, Altoon organized and led an American Institute of Architects Task Force to Armenia twice in 1989 following the horrific Spitak Earthquake to create a master plan to rebuild the epicenter city.  For his efforts there he was awarded the Memorial Medal from the Politburo of the Republic of Amenia, S.S.R.  He designed the technologically state-of-the-art academic Avedisian building for the American University of Armenia, and advised the AMAA on the design of the K-12 Avedisian High School & Community Center in Yerevan, acting as sustainable design champion achieving LEED Silver and LEED Earth certifications.