Book Discussion: Stateless: The Politics of the Armenian Language in Exile, by Talar Chahinian

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Brief Description

Talar Chahinian's ‘Stateless: The Politics of the Armenian Language in Exile' traces the development of Western Armenian literature after the genocide in two centers of cultural activity: post-WWI Paris and post-WWII Beirut. In Paris, a literary movement known as Menk addressed the horrors of the past and focused on creating a new literary aesthetic that cultivated a heterogeneous sense of transnational belonging in exile. In Beirut, the literature was nationalized in the absence of state institutions, and Armenian intellectuals constructed a unified narrative of the diaspora that emphasized the pre-1915 historical past and notions of a lost homeland. Chahinian argues that the adoption of “national” as the literature’s organizing logic instrumentalized cultural production and ignored the diverse composition of diaspora communities, ultimately limiting the longevity of Western Armenian. The book goes on to propose that the Menk authors’ model of plurality and local specificity serves as a key to envisioning the renewed vitality of Western Armenian as a stateless language. This roundtable discussion will take an interdisciplinary approach to ‘Stateless.’ Scholars will offer their perspectives on the cultural and theoretical interventions that the book makes, while also discussing its intersections with their own work in sociolinguistics, trauma and memory studies, diaspora studies, comparative literature, and creative writing.

Sub Unit

• Literature: 20th Century

Chair

• Neetu Khanna, U of Southern California

Roundtable Members

• Talar Chahinian, UC Irvine

• Shushan Karapetian, U of Southern California

• Helen Makhdoumian, Vanderbilt U