Two-day workshop organized by the UCLA Richard Hovannisian Chair of Modern Armenian History and co-sponsored by the UCLA Meyer and Renee Luskin Department of History, UCLA Narekatsi Chair in Armenian Studies, the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research, the UCLA Center for Near Eastern Studies, and UCLA Promise Armenian Institute.
Friday, May 29, 2026 to Saturday, May 30, 2026
9:00 AM - 5:00 PM (Pacific Time)
UCLA Faculty Center, Sequoia Room
DAY 1 - MAY 29, 2026
10:00 AM - 10:30 AM | WELCOME & OPENING REMARKS
Sebouh D. Aslanian
Through the Eye of a Needle: Global Microhistory and Armenian Early Modernity
10:30 AM - 12:30 PM | PANEL 1: THE MAGICAL WORLD OF ARMENIAN PRINT
Discussant / Chair: Dr. Sona Tajiryan
Aram Ghoogasian
The Uses and Misuses of Early Modern Books, 1512-1800
Anush Apresyan
The Mekhitarists’ Contribution to Early Modernity: Abbot Mekhitar in Armenian Old Printed Books
Hratch Kestenian
Making Medicine Legible: Mik'ayel Réstên Ter-Petrosean and Early Modern Armenian Medical Print
12:30 PM - 02:00 PM | LUNCH BREAK
02:00 PM - 04:00 PM | PANEL II: OBJECTS IN MOTION: MATERIALITY, POWER, AND PATRONAGE
Discussant / Chair: Dr. Sebouh David Aslanian
Ani Margaryan
Patronage, Materiality, and Identity: A Microhistorical Inquiry into Armenian Mercantile Networks through Objets d'Art
Emma Harutyunyan
Liturgical Objects and the Construction of Patronal Identity
Sona Tajiryan
A Merchant'& Extraordinary Gem Portfolio: An Early Modern Phenomenon?
04:00 PM - 06:00 PM | PANEL III: MOBILITY AND MEMORY IN PERIPHERAL AND URBAN SPACES AND LIVED EXPERIENCE
Discussant / Chair: Dr. S. Peter Cowe
Naira Poghosyan
Armenians in the Ottoman Province: A Microhistorical Reading of Hakop Divriktsi’s Chronicle (1759-1783)
Başak Yağmur Karaca
Diaspora In-Built Form: Armenian Mobility and Commercial Buildings in Eighteenth-Century Intra-Muros Istanbul
Haykuhi Muradyan
A Microhistory of the Armenian Church of Dhaka (17B1): Diaspora, Mobility, and Memory
07:30 PM - 10:00 PM | DINNER (BY INVITATION ONLY)
At Professor Aslanian's home
DAY 2 - MAY 30, 2026
10:00 AM - 12:00 PM | PANEL IV: HISTORIES OR STORIES? WORDS AND LITERATURE AS WITNESSES TO INTERACTION, MIGRATION, AND IMAGINATION
Discussant / Chair: Dr. Hagop Gulludjian
Suman Pal
Grigor Harutiunian in Eighteenth-Century Bengal: Diaspora and Historical Imagination
Christine Baghdasaryan
Armenian Words and Cross-Cultural Interactions in the Dede Qorqud Epic, c. 1512-1789
Vera Sahakyan
Surviving Memory: Shah Abbas’s Deportations and the Transmission of Environmental Toponyms
Areg Vardanyan
The Armenian Early Modernity: A Duality of Experience?
12:00 PM - 01:30 PM | LUNCH BREAK
01:30 PM - 03:30 PM | PANEL V: CONFESSIONALISM BETWEEN TEXT AND TRIBUNAL: VERNACULAR CULTURE, IMPOSTURE, AND THE LAW
Discussant / Chair: Dr. Mary Momdjian
Anna Ohanjanyan
Confessional Mobility and Imposture: A Microhistory of an Armenian "False Priest" in the Eighteenth-Century Ottoman World
Sebouh D. Aslanian
Inquisitorial Ashkharabar: A Microhistory of Zaccaria Ter Martirosean and the Vernacular Turn in Manila, c. 1740-1760
Yavuz Aykan
An Armenian Metropolitan on Trial: Sexual Crime, Communal Politics, and Legal Culture in Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Trabzon
03:30 PM | Closing & Farewell
Download file: microhistories-of-armenian-early-modernity-2j-phq.pdf