The demise of empires in the first half of the twentieth century has witnessed the rise of competing nationalisms and the establishment of ethno-national states. The turn from imperial to nation-state governance has meant the drawing of new borders and new imaginative categorization of populations based on ethnic, language, and sectarian affiliation. This course offers a contextual reading of nation-states in the post-Ottoman Balkans and the Middle East by focusing on the Armenians in Turkey as a case study. With the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, the Armenian genocide survivors became citizens of a nation-state that once sought their annihilation. This course examines the history of this population by looking at the ambiguous relationship Armenians continue to have with the Turkish state, the Armenian Patriarchate in Turkey, as well as the Armenian diaspora institutions. The readings will contrast official and critical historiographical accounts of Turkey, as well as silenced chapters, absences, and misrepresentation of Armenians in such accounts by looking at ethnographies and social historical accounts. In general, the course seeks to understand the process of turning a ‘native’ community to ‘foreign’ minority as they continue to live in their ancestral homeland. While the focus is on the Armenians, the course positions this population to also look at a subaltern history of the Republic of Turkey. It examines the relationship between excluding Armenians from Turkish history has also meant exclusion from equal rights as citizens. To his end, the course is theoretically framed in critiques of nationalist historiography and anthropological concepts of the state, nation-building, inclusion/exclusion of populations, and diaspora-homeland relations.

Course Objectives
• To understand the Armenian experience in republican Turkey and the diaspora since the First World War.
• To visit the major events in late Ottoman history, especially those leading to the Armenian genocide in light of contemporary history of Turkey.
• To engage different approaches to studying and writing Turkish republican history and undocumented Armenian populations in the context of other subaltern groups: Kurds, Alevi, Jews, and Rums (‘Greeks’).
• To understand post-imperial nation-building policies of demographic engineering: genocide, ethnic cleansing, forced migration, and internal colonization.
• To trace (forced)-migration routes and patterns of Armenians (and Kurds) since 1923: Anatolia, Istanbul, Western Europe
• Genocide, nation-building and the making of diasporas: The Armenian case

Course Requirements:

No data submitted

Intended Audience:

Undergraduates interested in nation-state building in Middle East and Balkans, sectarianism and governance, post-genocide Armenian history, social history of Turkey, Christians of the Middle East, post-genocide societies, historical and anthropological approaches to the study of the Middle East and the Balkans (the post-Ottoman).

Class Format:

Text Response Twice a week combination of lectures and class discussions