Events

• April 24, 7:00 PM

  Armenian Genocide Remembrance

  Join us for a special reading marking Armenian Genocide Remembrance day, the annual holiday to commemorate the victims of the Armenian Genocide of 1915. Organized by poet Alina Gregorian, this night of remembrance features Lambda and PEN finalist Nancy Agabian, poet Christopher Janigian, poet Lola Koundakjian, and nonfiction writer and musician Raffi Joe Wartanian. RESERVE A SEAT! $5 SUGGESTED DONATION | OPEN TO THE PUBLIC Nancy Agabian is the author of Princess Freak (2000, Beyond Baroque Books) a collection of poetry, prose, and performance texts, and a memoir, Me as her again: True Stories of an Armenian Daughter (2008, Aunt Lute Books), which was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award in LGBT Nonfiction and shortlisted for a Saroyan International Writing Prize. Both books tell stories of coming-of-age and generational trauma (resulting from the Armenian genocide of 1915), with a focus on gender and sexuality. Nancy's recent novel, The Fear of Large and Small Nations, tells the story of an abusive relationship that illuminates the complex, often contradictory processes of self-determination that bind the Armenian diaspora and its homeland. It was a finalist for the 2016 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially-Engaged Fiction. A recent nominee for a Pushcart Prize, Nancy teaches creative writing at New York University and The New School. Read her writing about nationalism and Armenian coffee in AAWW’s The Margins. Alina Gregorian is a poet and artist. She is the author of Flags for Adjectives (Diez) and Navigational Clouds (Monk Books). Her first gallery exhibition was Talk to Me in Parsley and Tambourines: Artists of the Armenian Diaspora at Babycastles. Christopher Janigian's poems appear in Boston Review, PEN Poetry Series, Poor Claudia, Web Conjunctions, and Prelude, among other places, and he holds degrees from Brown and Columbia. Lola Koundakjian enjoys reading in her city of adoption. She writes in Western Armenian and in English, is co-curator of a poetry series at the Zohrab Information Center and director of the online Armenian Poetry Project. She is the author of The Accidental Observer and Advice to a Poet. Writer and musician Raffi Joe Wartanian is the grandson and great-grandson of Armenian Genocide survivors from Adana, Hajin, Kharpert, and Zara. His work has appeared at Lincoln Center, The Baltimore Sun, and No, Dear Magazine among others and has received support from the Fulbright Program, Eurasia Partnership Foundation, and Humanity in Action. Raffi is currently pursuing an MFA in nonfiction creative writing at Columbia University where he has taught and organized creative writing workshops at Rikers Island Jail Complex and the Manhattan VA. He is also developing new instrumental compositions on oud and guitar, as well as a feature screenplay about a Texas gun show. This event will be livestreamed on the Asian American Writers’ Facebook page. NOTE ON ACCESSIBILITY *The space is wheelchair accessible. No stairs. Direct elevator from ground floor to 6th floor. *We strongly encourage all participants of the space/event to be scent-free. If you all have any other specific questions about accessibility, please email Tiffany Le at tle@aaww.org with any questions on reserving priority seating. /\ /\ \/\/ \/\/ ..
  
• May 7, 6:30 PM

  Asian American Melancholia & Dissociation

  Academic David L. Eng and psychotherapist Shinhee Han first met in the mid-1990s when they were brought together by their collective sorrow by a spate of student suicides at Columbia University. Don’t miss this special discussion of their new book, Racial Melancholia, Racial Dissociation (Duke University Press 2019), which explores the psychic trauma of Asian American young adults from Generation X to Generation Y who they associate respectively with melancholia and dissociation. Through critical race theory and psychoanalytic theory, Eng and Han explore the loss of migration, displacement, and assimilation, as well as Asian American tropes such as coming out, transnational adoption, and model minority stereotypes. This event is cosponsored by the Asian Women Giving Circle. RESERVE A SEAT! $5 SUGGESTED DONATION | OPEN TO THE PUBLIC In Racial Melancholia, Racial Dissociation critic David L. Eng and psychotherapist Shinhee Han draw on case histories from the mid-1990s to the present to explore the social and psychic predicaments of Asian American young adults from Generation X to Generation Y. Combining critical race theory with several strands of psychoanalytic thought, they develop the concepts of racial melancholia and racial dissociation to investigate changing processes of loss associated with immigration, displacement, diaspora, and assimilation. These case studies of first- and second-generation Asian Americans deal with a range of difficulties, from depression, suicide, and the politics of coming out to broader issues of the model minority stereotype, transnational adoption, parachute children, colorblind discourses in the United States, and the rise of Asia under globalization. As Columbia University Professor Mae Ngai writes: “A most illuminating and productive dialogue about the dark side of the model minority stereotype, where theory meets practice, the social meets the personal, and the material meets the psychic. David L. Eng and Shinhee Han have given us new ways to think about the problems facing Asian American students, including their disturbing rate of suicide on college campuses.” A former board member of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, David L. Eng is Richard L. Fisher Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania. Shinhee Han is a psychotherapist at The New School and in private practice in New York City. This event will be livestreamed on the Asian American Writers’ Facebook page. NOTE ON ACCESSIBILITY *The space is wheelchair accessible. No stairs. Direct elevator from ground floor to 6th floor. *We strongly encourage all participants of the space/event to be scent-free. If you all have any other specific questions about accessibility, please email Tiffany Le at tle@aaww.org with any questions on reserving priority seating. /\ /\ \/\/ \/\/ ..