Infidelities: Armenian Studies Otherwise, March 24-26, 2023

Infidelities: Armenian Studies Otherwise
9:00am - March/24/2023
  • Friday, March 24, 2023 - 9:00am to 5:00pm
  • Saturday, March 25, 2023 - 9:00am to 5:00pm
  • Sunday, March 26, 2023 - 9:00am to 5:00pm

Location: Slought Institute and the ICA

Slought is pleased to announce the revival of Infidelities, a conference about new directions in the study of Armenian history, memory, culture and displacement across West Asia and the Middle East to the Americas and back, from March 24 through March 26, 2023. The program is presented in partnership with scholars and programs at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and Freie Universität Berlin.

The Critical Armenian Studies Collective is pleased to announce "Infidelities: Armenian Studies Otherwise", a three-day international conference about new directions in the study of Armenian memory, culture, and displacement across West Asia and the Middle East to the Americas and back. In collaboration with scholars and programs at Penn, the University of Michigan, and the Free University of Berlin, “Infidelities” brings together scholars, curators, filmmakers, visual artists, physical theatre performers, and a sound performer, all of whom work either directly in, or tangentially to, Armenian Studies, to flesh out new visions for the field, for the understanding of “Armenianness,” and for categories of identity at large. Through a series of panels, performances, film screenings, and working groups focused around the polyvalent provocation of "infidelity," the conference will focus on a spectrum of lively new directions toward which Armenian Studies is currently moving: feminist and queer interventions; cultural studies of hybrid and syncretic identities; aesthetic imaginings of Armenité beyond text and language; new materialisms and revolutionary change in a postsocialist setting; utopian futures beyond the nation-state; necropolitics, post-memory, and alternative imaginaries of the archive; as well as postcolonial critiques and visions of "reconciliation." The event will be hosted at Slought (4017 Walnut St.), with afternoon panels and film screenings at the LGBT Center (3907 Spruce St.). Open to the public. Registration is kindly requested.

This program is made possible through generous support from the Society for Armenian Studies, and, at the University of Pennsylvania, the following sponsors:

Middle East Center (MEC); Department of English; Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations; Cinema Studies; Russian and Eastern European Studies (REES); Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies (GSWS); Jewish Studies; Department of the History of Art; Annenberg Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication (CARGC); Program in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory; Theorizing; Lauder Institute; Wolf Humanities Center; Ann Matter; SASgov; Gen/Sex; and the University Research Foundation Award