Dear Friends of UCI Armenian Studies,
On behalf of the UCI Center for Armenian Studies, I am pleased to invite you to join us at the symposium, "New Diasporas for an Old Diaspora: Armenian Hybrid Communities in the 21st Century," on Saturday, May 2, 2026, at Humanities Gateway 1030 on the UC Irvine campus. This one-day gathering, led by Dr. Talar Chahinian and Dr. Sossie Kasbarian, will bring together scholars from North America and Europe whose research explores the evolving and layered formations of Armenian diaspora life that have emerged over recent decades.
Please save the date, details are forthcoming!
Registration is required to help us plan event logistics, including lunch and the reception. All attendees are warmly invited to join us.
Please RSVP here by April 23rd
A permit is required to park on the UCI Campus. Permits can be purchased in advanced here.
Symposium Program
9:30 AM / Coffee & Light Refreshments
10:00 AM / Welcome and Opening Remarks
Houri Berberian, Director of the UCI Center for Armenian Studies
10:05 AM / Introductory Remarks
Talar Chahinian & Sossie Kasbarian
10:15 AM / Armenian Diasporas in California
Chair: Nasrin Rahimieh (University of California, Irvine)
- Daniel Fittante (University of Helsinki), Ethnopolitical Entrepreneurs: Outsiders inside Armenian Los Angeles
- Oshin Khachikian (American Institutes for Research®), Who Benefits from Ethnic Capital? Group Norms, Social Class, and Education among Armenian Americans in Los Angeles
- Karen Jallatyan (Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Budapest), Broadcasting Diaspora in Times of Change: Vahé Oshagan as the San Francisco Correspondent of Voice of America’s Armenian Section during the 1980s and 1990s
- Lilit Keshishyan (University of Southern California) & Gegham Mughnetsyan (University of Southern California), California History through Armenian Experiences Project (SoCal)
12:00 PM / Lunch Break (open to all)
1:00 PM / Emergent Global Armenian Diasporas in Perspective
Chair: Talinn Grigor (University of California, Davis)
- Lalai Manjikian (Vanier College, Montreal), Articulations of Armenian Diasporic Identity in Montreal: Navigating a Trilingual Reality
- Nicholas Tavitian (Independent Researcher, Belgium), The European Union and the Geopolitics of the Armenian Diaspora
- Hakob Matevosyan (Centre for East European and International Studies, Berlin), Diaspora as Social Field: Toward a New Framework for Armenian Multigenerational Formations
- Nare Galstyan (Syracuse University), From Roots to Routes: The Role of Ethnic Networks in the Development of Migrant Communities in Russia
2:45 PM / Coffee & Light Refreshments
3:00 PM / Concluding Discussion
Moderator: Houri Berberian (University of California, Irvine)
Panelists: Talar Chahinian (University of California, Irvine), Sossie Kasbarian (University of Chicago), Hrag Papazian (University of Southern California), and Shushan Karapetian (University of Southern California)
Reception to follow (all are welcome).
We thank our co-sponsors: the Departments of History, Comparative Literature, and Global and International Studies; the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research; the Society for Armenian Studies; and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.