Quick Overview
This volume is a collection of scholarly articles in honor of Dr. Dickran Kouymjian, whose productive career as scholar, teacher, and prolific public speaker, covers more than fifty years, and reflects his interests in a wider field of Armenian Studies. Kouymjian entered the field of Armenian studies in 1958, thus his career spans close to fifty years, very nearly the span of time in which the discipline of Armenian Studies developed with the founding of the first endowed chair of Armenian Studies at Harvard University in 1959. For the last thirty years, from 1977 to the present, Kouymjian has served as Director of the Armenian Studies Program at California State University, Fresno, and since 1988 he has been the holder of the Haig and Isabel Berberian Chair of Armenian Studies at the same university. He was one of the five original founders of the Society for Armenian Studies, in 1974, and he has had close ties to Armenologists in Europe and in Armenia. Kouymjian’s interests have ranged from the study of Armenian history and art, to the study of William Saroyan and genocide studies. For the past thirty years Kouymjian has resided for part of the year in Paris, France, and six articles in the French language on Armenian topics enrich this volume. His remarkably productive career is reflected in the scope of articles contained in this Festschrift in his honor. Forty-six individuals have contributed articles, on a variety of topics reflecting the scholarly interests of Dr. Kouymjian. Together, these articles will be a lasting legacy for a man whose contributions have incredibly enriched the field of Armenian Studies. The articles are from an international Who’s Who of the Armenian Studies field, from such overseas scholars as Robert Thomson, Michael Stone, Christopher Walker, and Gabriela Uluhogian, and American scholars such as Richard Hovannisian, George A. Bournoutian, Rouben Adalian, Christina Maranci, and Roberta Ervine, among others.