Armenian Dissidence: Highlights of an Unwritten History
Dr. Seta B. Dadoyan
There is a legacy of Armenian dissidence, the history of which has yet to be written. In this talk, her first at NAASR, Dr. Seta B. Dadoyan analyzes highlights of Armenian dissidence as reactions against—and yet also essential parts of—the cultural legacy of Armenians. By dissidence Dadoyan means sets of beliefs/values and/or courses of action that are liberal in essence and reformist in motives. As such they run contrary to the prevailing value systems and narratives.
Dissidence covers religious, reformist, syncretistic, and egalitarian social movements (such as the Tondrakians) that also had literary aspects (such as the work of Grigor Narekatsi). Pro-Eastern poli-cies and the careers of individuals and groups (such as the Armenians in the Islamic world), and Cilician ecumenism (exemplified by Nerses Lambronatsi) in turn ran counter to mainstream “na-tional” ideology. In many ways, Armenian popular culture and humor are “dissident” in their liberalism and cosmopolitanism. Dadoyan’s objective is to bring out alternative intriguing sides of Armenian culture and to suggest a more critical perspective than otherwise stereotyped accounts.
Dr. Dadoyan taught for many years at the American University of Beirut and Haigazian Univer-sity and more recently at Columbia University. She will be teaching at St. Nersess Seminary in 2007-2008. She is the author of numerous articles in scholarly journals and several books, including Pages of West Armenian Philosophical Thought (1987), The Fatimid Armenians: Cultural and Political Interaction in the Near East (1997), and The Armenian Catholicosate from Cilicia to Antelias: An Introduction to the Political History (2003). At present she is working on an extensive work on the Armenians in the Near East.
NAASR Center
395 Concord Ave., Belmont, MA
September 20, 2007
