Between Shadow and Rock: The Woman in Armenian American Literature

Periodically bolting out of the Boston apartment that keeps her safe in a world unmoved by her existence, clad in the heavy sweaters and thick wool socks that shield her barren spinsterhood, the Auntie of Hapet Kharibian\u27s Home in Exile also breaks out of the box that imprisons most portraits of Armenian American women.[1] As Auntie exerts her pittance of domestic authority by shopping for Ajax and picking green beans for an aged father\u27s stew, nurturing insanity through her idle days, the reader briefly glimpses a refreshing truthfulness behind the types and stereotypes that populate much Armenian American literature. Auntie\u27s life reflects a dual injustice: her silent reproaches to a dutiful nephew who visits weekly to shave his grandfather echo the equally inarticulate reproaches of numberless women unseen and unrecorded. Auntie reminds us that nowhere in Armenian American writing do we find a detailed and sustained portrait of a three-dimensional Armenian woman; indeed, in a literature that documents marginal experience -- both in the Old Country and in America -- the Armenian woman is exiled to its outer edges

From the Ground Up: Multiethnic Literature in the Humanities Curriculum

Spiritual dismemberment, which many associate with the plight of disinherited Native Americans, has dislocated millions of others in this country as well. Teaching multi-ethnic literature, I note in particular streams of students who like the narrator of Oritz\u27s poem are lonely for an authentic connection to a personal history. Throughout the term, they read selections which extol or dramatize the palpable struggles of characters who have a strong bond with ethnic traditions. They attend class surrounded by identifiable, certifiable ethnics. They listen to the instructor hold forth on the apocalyptic possibilities open to any who have access to these worldviews. In response, they may close up, become hostile, sympathize from a distance. But underneath, another current may swell with a question that also concerns many teachers in the humanities: in a nation where millions no longer identify with a distinct ethnic background, where individuals can trace bloodlines to multiple sources divided by time and place, what role does multi-ethnic literature play? How might the experiences of some ethnic groups be used by others in their own quests to help create a stronger, more intimate sense of community? In practice these questions are not briefly nor simply dealt with; at the personal level they require an enormous commitment to introspection and the possible pain of discovering a history that one might prefer buried. Nevertheless, as students -- no matter what their ethnic ties -- continue to grapple with troublesome questions, instructors must move from textual analysis to confront matters of application and synthesis

[Review of] Diana Der Hovanessian. About Time

As Armenian American literature matures, the impact of the massacres and dispersion of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in 1915 widens in meaning and relevance. A recently published collection of poetry by Diana Der Hovanessian suggests how issues raised by those long-ago events permeate the imagination of contempory [contemporary] Armenian American writers, giving poignant focus to their work. Diana Der Hovanessian, the foremost translator of Armenian poetry into English, demonstrated this most memorably in her Anthology of Armenian Poetry. Her first volume, How to Choose Your Past (1978, Ararat Press) displayed her wit and concern with the transmission of the Armenian language in a land where it is vulnerable to extinction. The second volume of her own work, About Time includes many poems which again showcase her strengths: short, epigrammatic pieces which tease the imagination and ironic poems that echo long after the first reading. Though many of these poems deal with non-Armenian subjects, those that weave together the volume once more express the poet\u27s love for the Armenian language and poets killed at the beginnings of the massacres

[Review of] Peter Najarian. Daughters of Memory

Daughters of Memory is Peter Najarian\u27s third work of fiction. The first, Voyages (1971) is a classic story of a young man born to immigrant Armenians beginning to come to terms with his family and communal past against the New Jersey backdrop. Written with lyricism and simplicity, it is one of the finest novels by an Armenian American writer. Najarian continued to explore the various parts of his psyche in the less accomplished second book, Wash Me On Home, Mama (1978). But it is only in this latest work that his growing maturity as a writer combined with his developing gifts as a visual artist produce an unusual story about the interweavings of personal and collective history

[Review of] Swami Nitya-Swarup-Ananda, Education for Human Unity and World Civilization

This work is of interest to any in ethnic studies for it outlines the need and process of establishing a new order of education which would serve the needs of cultural integrity and world unity. This latest version of Swami Nitya-Swarup-Ananda\u27s description of such an education, published in 1986, is the culmination of decades of thought and observation by the author, who founded the Ramakrishna Institute of Culture in Calcutta. The Swami has also worked closely with UNESCO in furthering the aims of worldwide cultural education which would promote planetary diversity at the same time that it promotes world harmony

[Review of] Peter Balakian. Reply from Wilderness Island

Reply from Wilderness Island is Peter Balakian\u27s third published collection of poetry. As with his two earlier works, Father Fisheye (1979) and Sad Days of Light (1983), this most recent one brings together the personal and the historical, as the poet further discovers connections between an American identity and an Armenian ancestry. The first section of the volume is a series of poems about the poet\u27s late father

Critique [of Change in American Indian World Views Illustrated by Oral Narratives and Contemporary Poetry by Silvester J. Brito]

Brito\u27s article draws a necessary contrast between the purpose and function of American Indian chants, and the American Indian\u27s descent into modern poetry. The latter is an idiom that can only voice anger and frustration: it symbolizes a spirit imprisoned, forced to protest through a borrowed medium because it seems to be the only one that the western mind can understand

Building the foundation for a community-generated national research blueprint for inherited bleeding disorders: research priorities for ultra-rare inherited bleeding disorders.

BACKGROUND: Ultra-rare inherited bleeding disorders (BDs) present important challenges for generating a strong evidence foundation for optimal diagnosis and management. Without disorder-appropriate treatment, affected individuals potentially face life-threatening bleeding, delayed diagnosis, suboptimal management of invasive procedures, psychosocial distress, pain, and decreased quality-of-life. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: The National Hemophilia Foundation (NHF) and the American Thrombosis and Hemostasis Network identified the priorities of people with inherited BDs and their caregivers, through extensive inclusive community consultations, to inform a blueprint for future decades of research. Multidisciplinary expert Working Group (WG) 3 distilled highly feasible transformative ultra-rare inherited BD research opportunities from the community-identified priorities. RESULTS: WG3 identified three focus areas with the potential to advance the needs of all people with ultra-rare inherited BDs and scored the feasibility, impact, and risk of priority initiatives, including 13 in systems biology and mechanistic science; 2 in clinical research, data collection, and research infrastructure; and 5 in the regulatory process for novel therapeutics and required data collection. CONCLUSIONS: Centralization and expansion of expertise and resources, flexible innovative research and regulatory approaches, and inclusion of all people with ultra-rare inherited BDs and their health care professionals will be essential to capitalize on the opportunities outlined herein