PAI POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWSHIPS

Anoush Tamar Suni (Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles, 2019) “Underground Traces: Violence, Ruins, and the Politics of History in Anatolia”

Under the mentorship of Dr. Salih Can Açiksöz, associate professor in the UCLA Department of Anthropology, Dr. Suni will focus on expanding her dissertation—which traces the afterlives of the architectural heritage of the now-absent Armenian community that has persisted on the landscape of southeastern Turkey alongside more recent ruins—into a book manuscript to submit to an academic press.

Arman Shokhikyan (Ph.D., University of Nottingham, 2023) “Charisma and Authority in the Armenian Christianity: A Decolonizing Engagement with the Vardapet Order”

Under the mentorship of Dr. Peter Cowe, the UCLA Nareketsi Endowed Professor of Armenian Studies, Dr. Shokhikyan will examine the historical relationship between the Armenian Apostolic Church’s vardapet position and the Russian Orthodox Church’s bishop, proposing that the fading of the Armenian charismatic leadership is linked to the Russian Orthodox Church’s colonial influence. A decolonizing approach will offer new insights into the vardapet’s charismatic leadership, gender representation, and ritual context drawn from unstudied archival, literary, and artistic sources.

PAI ARMENIAN GENOCIDE RESEARCH PROGRAM POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWSHIP

Sedat Ulugana (Ph.D., EHESS-Paris, 2019) “Transformation of the perpetrator into a victim: shifting relations between Kurds and Armenians from the genocide of 1915 to the Ararat revolt”

Under the mentorship of Dr. Taner Akçam, director of the UCLA PAI Armenian Genocide Research Program, Dr. Ulugana will examine the shifting nature of the Kurdish-Armenian political movements and alliances towards the formation of the modern Turkish state, revealing how the transformation from an imperial political setting to a modern national state impacted the state-society relations, as some Kurdish communities that were implicated in the Armenian Genocide became victims of state violence themselves.

UCLA PAI DISSERTATION YEAR FELLOWSHIP

Erdem Ilter (UCLA Department of History) “Ottoman State-Building: An Analysis of the Anatolian General Inspectorate (1895-1899)”

Under the mentorship of Dr. James Galvin, professor in the UCLA Department of History, Erdem Ilter will complete his dissertation which examines the history of the Anatolian General Inspectorate, Anadolu Umûm Müfettişliği (1895-1899). Sultan Abdulhamid II established the inspectorate to solve the growing “Armenian Question,” which was seen as an existential threat to the empire during the late nineteenth century.

Daniel Ohanian (UCLA Department of History) “Church of Armenia, Church of Rome: Faith, Print, and Power in Ottoman-Armenian History, 1688–1717” (partial fellowship)

Under the mentorship of Dr. Sebouh David Aslanian, the UCLA Richard Hovannisian Endowed Professor of Modern Armenian History, Daniel Ohanian will complete his dissertation, which examines a period of turmoil among the Armenian communities of the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East. Around 1700, these communities reacted to increased Roman-Catholic missionary work in their midst by either (1) doubling down on their adherence to the traditional Armenian Apostolic Church or (2) converting to Catholicism and creating new, Armenian-Catholic institutions.