UCLA PROMISE ARMENIAN INSTITUTE 2024-2025 GRANT AND FELLOWSHIP RECIPIENTS

Los Angeles, CA — The UCLA Promise Armenian Institute (PAI) announced the selection of the following individuals to receive research support during 2024-2025. PAI grants and fellowships are designed to support research across all academic fields, with an emphasis on or connection to Armenia or Armenians.

Samvel Grigoryan (Ph.D., Paul-Valéry University of Montpellier, 2021) will pursue a research project entitled, ‘Cancellaria Regni Armeniae’ and its Communication with the Foreign Courts and Actors”

Under the mentorship of Dr. Peter Cowe, the UCLA Nareketsi Professor of Armenian Studies, Dr. Grigoryan will provide a systematic survey of the activity of the “J̌ancʽlerutʽiwn Hayocʽ” / “Cancellaria [Regni] Armeniae” (“[Royal] Chancellery of Armenia”), connecting chancelleries and document production in the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia. He will examine the manifestations of power, geopolitical reality, interstate relations, dependences and sovereign’s sacrality through wording, terminology, nomenclature and symbolism of royal charters. There will also be a focus on the creation of a digital database (titled “Jansler”) of the documents from the Royal Chancellery of Armenia.

Burcu Bugu (Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles, 2024) will pursue a research project entitled, “Contours of Belonging: Alevized Armenians in Dersim – Negotiating Identity, Memory, and Resistance”

Under the mentorship of Dr. Salih Can Açiksöz, associate professor in the UCLA Department of Anthropology, Dr. Bugu will examine the complex dynamics of identity and belonging among Alevized Armenians in Dersim, a region historically known to be a refuge for persecuted communities. Focusing on the intersection of Armenian and Alevi-Kurdish histories, Dr. Bugu will explore how Dersimi Armenians negotiate their ethno-religious identities in the aftermath of the Armenian Genocide and subsequent massacres. She will also investigate the current activities of many Alevized Armenians, including reconversion to Christianity and establishment of connections with wider Armenian communities, in addition to exploring their impact on the transmission of cultural heritage.

Victor Agadjanian, Ph.D., (Distinguished Professor of Sociology, UCLA) will receive travel grant funds to pursue a research project entitled, “Male Labor Migration and Rural Women’s Health: Understanding Connections and Optimizing Actions.”

This project will link men’s international labor migration with “left-behind” women’s health in rural Armenia. It will examine how men’s migration, through its gendered effects on family resources, opportunities, and relationships, may facilitate or obstruct women’s demand for, access to, and utilization of two types of health services: reproductive healthcare and breast/gynecological cancer prevention, detection, and treatment. The findings will inform policies aimed at improving the health and well-being of migrants’ families.

Liza Mardoyan (Doctoral student, UCLA Department of Information Studies) will receive travel grant funds to pursue a research project entitled, “Knowledge Production via Print Culture in the Armenian Diasporic Community of Beirut, Lebanon.”

This project aims to elucidate how a forcibly displaced community produces and sustains knowledge in its native language in a diasporic setting by investigating the complex interplay between the establishment of schools and publishing houses and the resulting print culture. Motivated by the disappearance of Armenian publishing house archives, this study endeavors to preserve and construct the community’s history. The researcher aims to gather preliminary data through archival research and oral history interviews, shaping a comprehensive understanding of Armenian diasporic print culture.