Speaking Scars, Tattooed Texts: “Embodied Archives” as Feminist Interpretation of the Armenian Genocide

Join the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Salem State University for a talk by Professor Elyse Semerdjian, the author of Remnants: Embodied Archives of the Armenian Genocide (Stanford University Press, 2023). In this talk, Professor Semerdjian will discuss her research on "embodied archives," a feminist critique of archival practice in Armenian Studies. She will examine how physical and material remnants, such as scars and tattooed texts, function as historical records, challenging conventional notions of what constitutes evidence of violence against Armenian women victims of the Armenian Genocide.

Elyse Semerdjian is the Robert Aram and Marianne Kaloosdian and Stephen and Marian Mugar Chair of Armenian Genocide Studies at the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University. She is a specialist in the history of the Ottoman Empire, especially Ottoman Aleppo and the Armenian community. She authored “Off the Straight Path”: Illicit Sex, Law, and Community in Ottoman Aleppo (Syracuse University Press, 2008) and Remnants: Embodied Archives of the Armenian Genocide (Stanford University Press, 2023). Remnants is the winner of the 2024 Association of Middle East Women’s Studies best book prize and the 2025 Raphael Lemkin Book Award by the Institute for the Study of Genocide.