Stateless: The Politics of the Armenian Language in Exile

In Stateless, Chahinian offers a rich exploration of Western Armenian literary history in the wake of the 1915 genocide that led to the dispersion of Armenians across Europe, North America, and beyond. Chahinian highlights two specific time periods—post-WWI Paris and post-WWII Beirut—to trace the ways in which literature developed in each diaspora community. In Paris, a literary movement known as Menk addressed the horrors Armenians experienced and focused on creating a new literary aesthetic centered on belonging while in exile. In Beirut, Chahinian shows how the literature was nationalized in the absence of state institutions. Over time, Armenian intellectuals constructed a unified and coherent narrative of the diaspora that returned to the pre-1915 literary tradition and excluded the Menk generation. Chahinian argues that the adoption of "national" as the literature’s organizing logic ultimately limited its vitality and longevity as it ignored the diverse composition of diaspora communities.

About the Author :
Talar Chahinian lectures in the program for Armenian studies at University of California, Irvine where she is also visiting faculty in the Department of Comparative Literature. She coedits Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies.

Review :
Chahinian's account of literary production in a minor language by writers 'operating on the margins of the majority culture'will serve as an insightful resource to address conceptual, methodological, and pedagogical questions in Lebanese, Middle Eastern, and SWANA diaspora studies.-- "Mashriq & Mahjar" An impeccably researched and beautifully written study of the cultural, literary, and linguistic contributions of Armenian writers in 1920s Paris, during the formation years of a diaspora whose intellectual center of gravity would later shift to Beirut. Chahinian provides an elegant and lasting contribution to genocide and catastrophe studies.-- "Françoise Lionnet, Harvard University" An exemplary engagement with a number of current debates about diasporas and nations, national literatures and world literature, trauma and mourning, resulting in a book that will draw attention from multiple and vigorous intellectual constituencies.-- "Khachig Tölölyan, professor emeritus, Wesleyan University" An invaluable study of the effects of the Armenian genocide on the language and literature of Armenians scattered across the globe.-- "Nasrin Rahimieh, University of California, Irvine"