An Armenian Mediterranean

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xxi

   PDF

2. Introduction: A Movable Armenia

   • Michael Pifer

   Pages 1-10

3. Rethinking Boundaries

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 11-11

      PDF

   2. The Age of the Gharīb: Strangers in the Medieval Mediterranean

      • Michael Pifer

      Pages 13-37

   3. Past the Mediterranean and Iran: A Comparative Study of Armenia as an Islamic Frontier, First/Seventh to Fifth/Eleventh Centuries

      • Alison Vacca

      Pages 39-57

   4. A Fish Out of Water? Armenia(ns) and the Mediterranean

      • Sergio La Porta

      Pages 59-77

4. Connecting Histories

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 79-79

      PDF

   2. From “Autonomous” to “Interactive” Histories: World History’s Challenge to Armenian Studies

      • Sebouh David Aslanian

      Pages 81-125

   3. Mapping Jerusalem: Re-reading the City in the Context of the Medieval Mediterranean

      • Tamar M. Boyadjian

      Pages 127-148

5. Breaking National & Imperial Paradigms

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 149-149

      PDF

   2. Between Anatolia and the Balkans: Tracing Armenians in a Post-Ottoman Order

      • Hakem Al-Rustom

      Pages 151-171

   3. Armeno-Turkish Writing and the Question of Hybridity

      • Murat Cankara

      Pages 173-191

   4. Wandering Minstrels, Moving Novels: The Case of Khach‘atur Abovean’s Wounds of Armenia

      • Vahram Danielyan

      Pages 193-204

6. Texturizing Diaspora

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 205-205

      PDF

   2. Weaving Images: Textile, Displacement, and Reframing the Borders of Visual Culture

      • Marie-Aude Baronian

      Pages 207-219

   3. Diasporic Flânerie: From Armenian Ruinenlust to Armenia’s Walkscapes

      • David Kazanjian

      Pages 221-246

   4. Spaces of Difference, Spaces of Belonging: Negotiating Armenianness in Lebanon and France

      • Vahe Sahakyan

      Pages 247-267

7. Placing Statehood

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 269-269

      PDF

   2. Contemporary Armenian Drama and World Literature

      • Myrna Douzjian

      Pages 271-285

   3. How to Write the History of the Third Republic or How Not to Write It

      • G. J. Libaridian

      Pages 287-306

This book rethinks the Armenian people as significant actors in the context of Mediterranean and global history. Spanning a millennium of cross-cultural interaction and exchange across the Mediterranean world, essays move between connected histories, frontier studies, comparative literature, and discussions of trauma, memory, diaspora, and visual culture. Contributors dismantle narrow, national ways of understanding Armenian literature; propose new frameworks for mapping the post-Ottoman Mediterranean world; and navigate the challenges of writing national history in a globalized age. A century after the Armenian genocide, this book reimagines the borders of the “Armenian,” pointing to a fresh vision for the field of Armenian studies that is omnivorously comparative, deeply interconnected, and rich with possibility.

• Armenian history
• Armenian studies
• Armenian literature
• Armenian genocide
• Medieval Mediterranean
• Armenia in the Post-Ottoman Order
• Diaspora studies
• Post-Soviet Armenia
• History of the Third Republic
• Armenia as Islamic Frontier
• Mediterranean and Iran
• History of Jerusalem
• History of Anatolia
• History of the Balkans
• Armenian culture

• Armenian Studies Program, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

  Kathryn Babayan

• University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

  Michael Pifer

Kathryn Babayan is Associate Professor of Iranian History and Culture and Director of the Armenian Studies Program at the University of Michigan, USA.


Michael Pifer is Lecturer in Armenian Language and Literature at the University of Michigan, USA.

Policies and ethics