News — #NAASR

Over the course of six decades, no individual did more to shape Armenian Studies, and certainly no one has done has much to advance and give legitimacy to the study of modern Armenian history, as Richard Hovannisian. The void left by his passing is enormous. We are fortunate, however, that the legacy of his life and work is even larger; and his legacy will endure.

In conjunction with the celebratory event NAASR held on May 6, 2023, marking the appointment of Christina Maranci as the third holder of the Mashtots Chair in Armenian Studies at Harvard University, we are devoting this Library Treasures installment to materials from NAASR’s own organizational archives pertaining to this organization’s pioneering effort to establish the first chair in Armenian Studies in the U.S.—or, indeed, anywhere in the Armenian diaspora in North America—focusing on the years from 1954 to the appointment of the first chairholder in 1969.

The Cummings Foundation grant will be used to create an online curated genocide resource center featuring leading documentary resources suitable for users at a high school level education and to promote the new online genocide resource center to librarians and schoolteachers within the communities of Essex, Middlesex and Suffolk counties.

NAASR was launched in March 1955 to pursue a bold vision of promoting Armenian Studies by establishing endowed chairs at foremost universities in the United States. NAASR achieved this ambitious goal by establishing the first chair in Armenian Studies, at Harvard University. In 1959 we marked the successful conclusion of our Harvard Chair campaign at a gala in Memorial Hall. The Mashtots Chair was the first at Harvard to be endowed by a community organization.

The NAASR Board of Directors and staff join with many worldwide in mourning Dr. Dennis Papazian (1931-2023), a friend and colleague and contributor to multiple aspects of academia, Armenian-American life, and Armenian Studies for decades. He was a Charter Member of NAASR, having joined in 1955, and a NAASR Life Member. He served as a NAASR Regional Director for Michigan from 1967-71, on the NAASR Board of Directors from 1973-1990, and for decades as a member of the NAASR Academic Advisory Committee.