Dr. Nanor Kebranian will speak on “Reading History, Remaking Memory with Zabel Yessayan: On Translating an Armenian Author’s Turkish Women” in a presentation, which will be held on Friday, February 25 at 7 p.m. The presentation is part of the Spring 2022 Lecture Series of the Armenian Studies Program.
Since 2005 – and some 80 years after her presumed death – the Ottoman-Armenian author, Zabel Yessayan (1878 – 1943?), has risen to a level of international acclaim that she could once only dream of. This renown has stemmed largely from her reception among progressive segments of Turkish civil society, which now hail her as a paragon of anti-authoritarian – and especially, feminist – resistance.
This presentation will address Yessayan’s 21st century journey from obscure Armenian writer to international icon, while charting her works’ significance in revising historical conceptions and popular memories of Armeno-Turkish relations. Focusing on the three translated stories in the recently published collection, “Captive Nights: From the Bosphorus to Gallipoli with Zabel Yessayan” (2021), Kebranian will explore the author’s representation of Turkish women as an exercise in inter-communal solidarity.
Nanor Kebranian is a researcher, writer, and translator working at the intersection of history, law, and literature. She received her doctorate from Oxford University with fellowships from the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation and Oxford’s Clarendon Fund. She has held research positions at Columbia University, Queen Mary University of London, and Nanyang Technological University. Captive Nights is her second collaborative project with G. M. Goshgarian, following the publication of Remnants by Hagop Oshagan (London: Gomidas Institute, 2013).
Register for the Zoom discussion here.
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