Dr. Sanjian will analyze the development of Armenian historiography, i.e. the study of the methods of Armenian historians from the Middle Ages to the present, together with the changing interpretations of key events in the Armenian past recorded in the works of their predecessors. He will suggest a tentative periodization, emphasizing the medieval period (5th-18th cc. C.E.) and the successive periods of the influence of Father Mikayel Chamchian in the late early modern era (late 18th-mid-19th cc.), historism (late 19th c.-1920), and Soviet Marxism (1920-1991), culminating in the present era of post-Soviet independence (from 1991).

Dr. Ara Sanjian is an Associate Professor of History and the Director of the Armenian Research Center at the University of Michigan, Dearborn. He received his master’s degree in history from Yerevan State University (1991) and his PhD from the University of London (1996). From 1996 to 2005 he taught at Haigazian University in Beirut and was the Henry S. Khanzadian Kazan Visiting Professor in Armenian Studies at California State University, Fresno in 2003. His research interests focus on the post-World War I history of Armenia, Turkey and the Arab states of Western Asia.