America's Response to the Armenian Genocide

A one-day conference entitled "America's Response to the Armenian Genocide: From Woodrow Wilson to Barack Obama," will take place at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

The conference is co-organized by Profs. Bedross Der Matossian (MIT) and Christopher Capozzola (MIT) and sponsored by the Faculty of History, the Center for International Studies (CIS), the Office of the Religious Affairs, and the Program on Human Rights & Justice (PHRJ).

The goal of the conference is to discuss and examine America's evolving policy toward the Armenian Genocide from the earliest years of World War I through the present day.

Although the Armenian Genocide is increasingly recognized as one of the foundational events of the twentieth century's painful history of political and ethnic violence, scholars who have examined its impact on United States foreign policy have concentrated almost exclusively on the presidency of Woodrow Wilson. But the legacy of the Armenian Genocide shaped U.S. policy through the twentieth century-as Americans confronted the meaning of "genocide" itself in the wake of World War II; as they confronted Armenia's pivotal place in the tense Cold War conflict; as Armenian Diaspora voices pressed Congress for recognition; and as geopolitics shifted again with the unification of Europe and U.S. intervention in the Middle East.

The one-day conference will bring together specialists in U.S. foreign relations, along with historians of ethnic conflict, genocide, and humanitarian intervention more generally. By bringing together experts on Armenia with those whose interests range somewhat further afield, the conference seeks to incorporate Armenian histories more fully into historical and social scientific disciplines and to foster dialogue between area studies specialists and U.S. historians.

Panels will discuss three major historical phases that shaped U.S. policy towards the Armenian Genocide: World War I, the Cold War, and the post-Cold War era. The latter two periods remain particularly understudied periods.

Speakers at the conference include Prof. Jens Meierhenrich (Harvard University), Prof. Richard Hovannisian (UCLA), prof. David Engerman (Brandeis University), Prof. Christopher Capozzola (MIT), Prof. Simon Payaslian (BU),  Prof. David Ekbladh (Tufts University), Prof. Dennis Papazian (University of Michigan-Dearborn),  Michael Bobelian (lawyer, author, and journalist), Gregory Aftandilian (independent scholar), Dr. Rouben Adalian (ANI), Marc Mamigonian (NAASR), Dr. Suzanne Moranian (AIWA), and  Prof. Bedross Der Matossian (MIT). A
keynote speech will be delivered by Hovannisian, who holds the Armenian Educational Foundation Chair in Modern Armenian History at UCLA.

For the full program see:

http://web.mit.edu/history/www/Armenian_program.pdf

http://web.mit.edu/history/www/armenian-final.pdf