University of California Irvine

Armenian History Courses Continue at UC Irvine in 2013

IRVINE, CA - Established in 2007, Armenian History at the University of California, Irvine offers undergraduate courses in ancient and modern Armenian history. The program also sponsors quarterly public lectures aimed at bringing the history and cultural topics surrounding modern day Armenia to the broader Orange County community.

Made possible through generous gifts to the program, the 2012 Armenian History Lecture Series, included lectures by Richard Hovannisian on 'The Changing Landscape of Historic Western Armenia: Reflections on a Journey into the Past,' Talinn Grigor on `Dolling-up Yerevan Avant-garde Urbanism in Post-Soviet American Politics,' Houri Berberian on `Connected Revolutions: Armenians and the Russian, Ottoman and Iranian Revolutions of the Early Twentieth Century,' and `The Karabakh Conflict From Ceasefire to Safarov' with Levon Marashlian.

This year's course offerings in ancient and modern Armenian history continued to see strong student enrollments and the winter 2013 offering in Modern Armenian History should be no exception. Celebrated Armenian historian and professor emeritus of Armenian and Near Eastern History at UCLA, Richard Hovannisian, will join the faculty as a guest lecturer. On January 17, the Armenian History Lecture Series kicks off with "The Armenian Genocide in Literature, Perceptions of those who Lived through the Years of Calamity" with Rubina Peroomian. Peroomian is an associate researcher at the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at UCLA. She has been a lecturer of Armenian language, literature and history and the Armenian Question at UCLA, University of Laverne, and Glendale College.

Armenian History will also welcome a lecture by S. Peter Cowe, professor of Armenian language and culture at UCLA, in early 2013; and Giusto Traina, professor of Roman history at the Paris-Sorbonne University, will lecture on "Tigran the Great, King of Kings" on May 28, 2013. Traina is currently involved in long-term research about ancient Armenia.

Founding supporters of Armenian History, Dr. Garo Tertzakian and Mrs. Sylvie Tertzakian, will host their annual fundraiser for Armenian History in mid December. This marks the fifth year Armenians from the Orange County community will gather to raise funds in support of the growth of Armenian history at UCI.

UCI Student Government Passes Armenian Genocide Resolution

April 1st, 2015

IRVINE, Calif.—On Tuesday, March 30, the student government at the University of California, Irvine (UC Irvine), Associated Students UC Irvine (ASUCI), unanimously voted to pass “A Resolution Commemorating the Armenian Genocide and Condemning its Denial.”

About fifty students attended the ASUCI Legislative Counsel meeting at the school’s Student Center.

The resolution shed light on the massacres of the 1915 Armenian Genocide and the Ottoman Empire’s attempt to systematically annihilate the Armenian people. Furthermore, it brought awareness to the Republic of Turkey’s continuous genocide denial campaigns and efforts to hide its crimes against humanity.

Three Armenian student at UC Irvine, Carla Kekejian, Kristine Jermakian, and Hasmik Piliposyan spoke about the history of the Armenian Genocide, the cycle of genocide that continues today, and what the passing of this resolution means for genocide education and the recognition of the Armenian Genocide on a national level.

“The longer these crimes are denied and unrecognized, the more people stand idly by, because talking about it is difficult or inconvenient, the longer we allow such crimes and the cycle of genocide to continue,” said Carla Kekejian, third-year English and education sciences double major at UC Irvine.

The resolution called on ASUCI to not only commemorate the Armenian Genocide, but also “condemn those attempts made by governments as well as other entities, both public and private, to distort the historical reality and legal relevance of the Armenian Genocide to the descendants of its survivors and humanity as a whole.”

Through this resolution, the students hope to raise awareness about the Armenian Genocide and the ongoing denial by the Republic of Turkey and the United States. Moreover, they hope to work with ASUCI to educate students on campus about the cycle of genocide that continues with denial.

“History transcends words written on a page in a book. It echoes through time and space and the ripple effects continue to be felt today. The Genocide is an everyday reality that does not follow a linear progression,” said Kristine Jermakian, third-year pharmaceutical sciences and women’s studies double major at UC Irvine.

Furthermore, through the passing of this resolution, ASUCI “supports the efforts of the Armenian-American community at UC Irvine to establish April 24 as the official Day of Remembrance for the Armenian Genocide.”

“As Armenians, we are born with the Armenian Genocide, it is embedded in our blood. We live and breathe the effects of out people’s demise each and every day,” said Hasmik Piliposyan, third-year political science major at UC Irvine.

California State University, Northridge (CSUN) and California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) passed similar genocide recognition resolutions last month.

This article contains text with a copyright from Asbarez. Please help us by extracting the factual information and eliminating the rest in order to keep the site in accordance to fair use standards, or by obtaining permission for reuse on this site..