The Center for Armenian Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, invites proposals for works in progress to be presented at its 16th Annual International Graduate Student Workshop (April 16–17, 2027). This workshop will be held in person on the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, campus.
Peopling the Past and Present: Social Turns in Armenian Studies
In recent decades, many fields have seen a “social turn,” or an insistence on asking what life was like for people who rarely appear in the dominant historiographic corpus. Armenian studies has also begun to grapple with these approaches “from below,” with more and more scholars asking what Armenian life has looked like from the vantage points of ordinary people rather than from the vantage points of elites.
We invite graduate students and early career scholars (those within three years of earning their PhDs) to present works in progress that center the lived experiences of everyday men, women and children in the Armenian past and present. We welcome work that relies on insights from disciplines including (but not limited to) history, anthropology, sociology, sociolinguistics, gender studies, human geography, social archaeology, education and migration studies. How can we recover the agency of peasants, laborers and other groups so often written out of elite-focused grand narratives? What is gained when scholars explore the experiences of people at work, at home and at play? How has social stratification been experienced? How have family and kinship networks shaped lived realities? What can folk customs, rituals and religious practices reveal about the ways people have bound together and set themselves in opposition to others? How have language varieties come to mark and enforce social distinctions? Although this workshop is centered in Armenian studies, we welcome contributions from cognate fields and case studies—particularly those that raise fresh questions or propose theoretical interventions that resonate with the themes of the workshop.
Please submit an abstract of 250 words, title, and CV by Sunday, November 15, 2026, using the following form: https://myumi.ch/jVNQ4
Successful applicants will be notified in December and must submit their works in progress (no more than 3,500 words) by March 10, 2027. Works in progress will be circulated among the workshop participants. The workshop will prioritize first-time applicants.
Participants will have 15 minutes to present their work. There will be additional time for questions, discussion and feedback from the workshop participants. The Center for Armenian Studies will make every effort to cover travel expenses. Per donor guidelines, preference will be given to those traveling from the Republic of Armenia.
This workshop—sponsored by the University of Michigan’s Center for Armenian Studies and funded by the Manoogian Foundation—is organized by Jennifer Manoukian (Manoogian Postdoctoral Fellow in Armenian Studies).
For questions, please email armenianstudies@umich.edu.