A hybrid book talk by Professor Bedross Der Matossian, Ph.D., of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Organized by the Armenian Studies Center of the Promise Armenian Institute, co-sponsored by the Richard Hovannisian Chair of Modern Armenian History, the Promise Institute for Human Rights at UCLA School of Law, the UCLA Center for Near Eastern Studies, the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR), the Ararat Eskijian Museum.

Friday, April 28, 2023
6:00 PM - 8:00 PM (Pacific Time)
UCLA Bunche Hall, Room 6275
11282 Portola Plaza
Los Angeles, CA 90095

In April 1909, two waves of massacres shook the province of Adana, located in the southern Anatolia region of modern-day Turkey, killing more than 20,000 Armenians. The central Ottoman government failed to prosecute the main culprits, a miscarriage of justice that would have repercussions for years to come. Despite the significance of these events and the extent of violence and destruction, the Adana Massacres are often left out of historical narratives. The Horrors of Adana offers one of the first close examinations of these events, analyzing sociopolitical and economic transformations that culminated in a cataclysm of violence. Drawing on primary sources in a dozen languages, he develops an interdisciplinary approach to understand the rumors and emotions, public spheres and humanitarian interventions that together informed this complex event.

Bedross Der Matossian is Professor of Modern Middle East History in the Department of History at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Born and raised in Jerusalem, he is a graduate of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he began his graduate studies in the Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies. He completed his Ph.D. in Middle East History in the Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies at Columbia University in 2008. From 2008 to 2010, he was a Lecturer of Middle East History in the Faculty of History at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). His areas of interest include ethnic politics in the Middle East, inter-ethnic violence in the Ottoman Empire, Palestinian history, and the history of Armenian Genocide. Formely a President of the Society for Armenian Studies, Dr. Der Matossian is the author of numerous edited volumes and two research monographs, Shattered Dreams of Revolution: From Liberty to Violence in the Late Ottoman Empire (Stanford University Press, 2014) and more recently, The Horrors of Adana: Revolution and Violence in the Early Twentieth Century (Stanford University Press, 2022).He serves on the Board of Directors of multiple international educational institutions and on the editorial board of many journals, the most prominent of which is the flagship journal of the field: International Journal of Middle East Studies (IJMES). Dr. Der Matossian is also the series editor of Armenians in the Modern and Early Modern World published by I.B.Tauris and Bloomsbury Press.

Sponsor(s): Armenian Studies Center, Center for Near Eastern Studies, Richard Hovannisian Chair of Modern Armenian History, Promise Institute for Human Rights at UCLA School of Law, National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR), Ararat Eskijian Museum