Armenian Research Center

Komitas and Armenian Music: Interactive Workshop

Led by: Dr. Tatevik Shakhkulyan

Tuesday, May 19, 2026 

This interactive workshop explored Armenian music through the work of Komitas, the founder of the Armenian national school of music. Through listening, discussion, and singing Komitas’s songs together in many voices, participants were introduced to Armenian musical traditions in an engaging and accessible setting.

The workshop was led by Dr. Tatevik Shakhkulyan, an ethnomusicologist specializing in Armenian musical traditions and the legacy of Komitas.

Between Tradition and Transformation: Contemporary Tendencies in Armenian Folk Music

Wednesday, May 20, 2026

Speaker: Dr. Tatevik Shakhkulyan

This talk explored the changing nature of Armenian folk music, tracing its journey from songs tied to everyday work to contemporary musical life in Armenia and the diaspora. Drawing on her fieldwork, Dr. Tatevik Shakhkulyan shared stories of songs that were forgotten, rediscovered, and transformed over time, reflecting on their connection to the legacy of Komitas, founder of the Armenian national school of music.

Dr. Tatevik Shakhkulyan is a Senior Researcher at the Institute of Arts of the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia and teaches at the Yerevan State Conservatory. She also develops educational programs at the KAYT Cultural-Educational Hub and is the author of both scholarly and accessible works.
 

The Armenian Middle East: Remnants, Resilience and Reconfigurations

Friday, April 10, 2026

Speaker: Sossie Kasbarian

This talk examined the contemporary Middle East through the prism of the Armenian diaspora. Dr. Sossie Kasbarian situated the Armenian experience of displacement, refugeehood, reconfiguration, and resilience as central to a transnational Middle East. The lecture also explored changing practices and identities among Middle East Armenians through their own narratives and reflections, highlighting broader insights from the Armenian diaspora experience.

Dr. Sossie Kasbarian is the Dumanian Visiting Professor in Armenian Studies at the University of Chicago and Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the University of Stirling. She earned her doctorate from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, and has held positions at the University of Edinburgh, SOAS, the Graduate Institute (Geneva), Lancaster University, and the American University in Cairo. She has published widely on the Armenian diaspora, Middle East politics, and migration studies, and co-edited The Armenian Diaspora and Stateless Power (2023) and Diasporas of the Modern Middle East (2015). She is co-editor of Diaspora – a Journal of Transnational Studies.

From Apostolic Roots to Modern Realities: 

Women in the Armenian Church

November 3, 2025

What role have women played in the story of the Armenian Church? This talk by Dr. David Zakarian took on a journey from the dramatic first accounts of Armenia’s conversion to Christianity in the early 4th century—where women appear as powerful symbols of faith and sacrifice—to the ways their presence and voices have shifted over the centuries. Along the way, it examined how history, tradition, and changing realities have shaped women’s place in the church, and what this means for today.

Dr. Zakarian is the Haig and Isabel Berberian Endowed Chair of Armenian Studies at California State University, Fresno. He holds a DPhil (PhD) in Oriental Studies from the University of Oxford, where he was also a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow between 2017 and 2019. He is the author of Women, Too, Were Blessed: The Portrayal of Women in Early Christian Armenian Texts (Brill, 2021) and co-editor of Armenia through the Lens of Time (Brill, 2022). He has published extensively on the representation of women in early Christian Armenian literature, as well as on medieval Armenian manuscripts.

Annual Armenian Independence Day Lecture

National Minorities in Armenia: Identity, Heritage, and Current Dynamics

October 15, 2025

Dr. Anahit Khosroeva's talk explored the multifaceted lives of Armenia's national minority communities, tracing their historical contributions and examining the ongoing challenges of cultural preservation in contemporary Armenia. It further considered the complexities of identity formation within a post-Soviet society, highlighting both the remarkable resilience of these communities and the vulnerabilities they continue to face.

Dr. Khosroeva is an ethnic Assyrian historian and genocide scholar born in Armenia. Her research focuses on the history of Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek genocides perpetrated in the Ottoman Empire between 1894 and 1923. An advocate for genocide recognition and prevention, Dr. Khosroeva has published and presented extensively worldwide in multiple languages and advances accountability through international human rights law.

Dr. Nune Melikian Revives the Legacy of Composer Arno Babadjanian in Dearborn

September 17, 2025

Dr. Nune Melikian, acclaimed violinist and scholar, presented a lecture at St. Sarkis Armenian Apostolic Church on the life and work of Armenian composer Arno Babadjanian (1921–1983). 

Dr. Melikian’s talk featured her newly published first English-language book on Babadjanian, accompanied by rare, never-before-seen photographs from the Arno Babadjanian International Foundation and a comprehensive list of his works. She explored the challenges faced by artists in the Soviet era and discussed why so little information about Babadjanian is available outside Armenia and Russia.

An internationally recognized performer, Dr. Melikian has appeared at Lincoln Center, Walt Disney Hall, and the United Nations Headquarters. She is the only Armenian woman violinist to debut at Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium with a symphony orchestra. Dr. Melikian currently serves as an Adjunct Lecturer at Yeshiva University and as a faculty member at the Kaufman Music Center’s Special Music School in New York.

Armenian Research Center Welcomes AGBU Manoogian High School Students 

April 25, 2025

On April 17, 2025, the Armenian Research Center (ARC) had the pleasure of hosting 24 high school students from the AGBU Alex & Marie Manoogian School (Southfield, Michigan), as part of their school’s community service program.

The students visited in two groups, each group spending 1.5 hours at the Center and 1.5 hours on a tour of the UM-Dearborn campus. During their time at the ARC, the students engaged in hands-on tasks essential to library operations. These included shelving books, barcoding items, and preparing boxes to store and preserve fragile volumes. Collectively, the students barcoded and reshelved 150 books and created custom boxes for 12 fragile items.

The ARC is proud to contribute to this educational initiative and remains committed to engaging with local Armenian community organizations. 

Photo credits: Arus Khcheyan Movsesyan (all images).

Our In-person office hours are:

Monday-Friday, 9:00 a.m. - 5:30 p.m.

For further information and inquiries please contact Mr. Gerald Ottenbreit, Jr. at [email protected] or call the ARC at 313-593-5181.

The Armenian Research Center is in 4030, on the fourth floor of the Mardigian Library (4901 Evergreen Rd, Dearborn, MI 48128). Consult the UM-Dearborn illustrated campus map for the location of the Mardigian Library (ML) building.

Visitor parking is marked on the campus map by VP.

Our mailing address is:

Armenian Research Center

4901 Evergreen Rd.
Dearborn, MI 48128