Dissertation Abstract by Jennifer Manoukian
Scholarly Articles by Jennifer Manoukian
Middle Eastern Studies, 2023
This article explores the historical moment in which the concept of a ‘national language’ began t... more This article explores the historical moment in which the concept of a ‘national language’ began to spread among Ottoman Armenians. It does so by examining the establishment of educational associations aimed at changing the language practices of non-Armenophone Armenians in three parts of the Ottoman Empire: Aleppo, Kayseri and Diyarbekir. I argue that these associations were part of a larger cultural nationalist movement that gained momentum in urban centers beginning in the 1840s. Through an examination of the founding principles of the associations, I show how they sought to integrate Arabic-, Turkish- and Kurdish-speaking Armenians into the would-be national community by facilitating their acquisition of Armenian. Historiographically, this article shines a spotlight on the unexamined dynamics of Ottoman Armenian cultural nationalism and language-based identity formation.
Book History, 2022
This article explores the role of translated literature in the expansion of the Ottoman Armenian ... more This article explores the role of translated literature in the expansion of the Ottoman Armenian reading public in the second half of the nineteenth century. It seeks to help integrate the fields of translation history and book history by focusing on the agency of translators at a time when literary translation predominated in Ottoman Armenian popular print culture. The article begins with a look at the state of the reading public in the mid-nineteenth century and the formation of a top-down “love of reading” (ընթերցասիրութիւն) campaign that sought to cure Ottoman Armenians of their indifference toward reading. It continues with a study of one prolific publishing house in Smyrna (Izmir), the Dedeyan Publishing House, and its network of translators, highlighting the particular strategies they used in support of this campaign. Here I show how both the literary works they chose and the particular form of Armenian they used were intended to facilitate the entry of new readers into the reading public. At the same time, I demonstrate how these choices also defined the boundaries of the reading public and sought to model social values and language practices for the burgeoning national community, sometimes at the expense of reaching and appealing to the broadest range of readers. The article ends with a discussion of the limits of their reach and a preliminary look at the response of readers to their translations.
Jennifer Manoukian, “Literary Translation and the Expansion of the Ottoman Armenian Reading Public, 1853-1884,” Book History 25, no. 1 (2022): 128-171.
Language and Globalization: An Autoethnographic Approach (ed. Maryam Borjian), 2017
https://www.... more Language and Globalization: An Autoethnographic Approach (ed. Maryam Borjian), 2017
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315394626-22/search-linguistic-legitimacy-manoukian-jennifer
Born to an Irish-American mother and Armenian-American father in New York, Manoukian did not learn Western Armenian as a mother-tongue, but rather came to it as a university student; thus, she joined a generation of ‘new speakers’ of Western Armenian, who were born and raised with another dominant language in diaspora. Yet, the challenge that she has encountered is that the very variety of Western Armenian spoken by her and the younger generation of speakers is not recognized by the older generation within the speech community. Hence, the questions she poses are: Who is the legitimate speaker of the language and what factors should determine legitimacy? In revitalizing endangered languages, as Manoukian argues, there is a tendency to look to the past for sources of linguistic legitimacy for the past is perceived as ‘authentic’ whereas the present is perceived as ‘adulterated.’ Yet, she problematizes such a perception by arguing that the rise of new speakers in many minority languages, including in Western Armenian, suggests the fact that we need to re-define our old and invented notions of linguistic legitimacy and speech community, for today, as rightly argued by Ofelia Garcia (et. al., 2012), the linguistic community can no longer be perceived as a ‘homogeneous whole’ but rather as a ‘heterogeneous site’ that is ‘fluid,’ ‘hybrid,’ and ‘dynamic.’ Hence, new speakers should, indeed, be perceived as the legitimate owners of the language for attempts to revitalize endangered languages rests in the hands of the younger generation.
Public-Facing Articles by Jennifer Manoukian
Commonplace: The Journal of Early American Life, 2022
http://commonplace.online/article/loosening-the-tongue/
How did American missionaries on foreign... more http://commonplace.online/article/loosening-the-tongue/
How did American missionaries on foreign shores manage to navigate the linguistic diversity within the Ottoman Empire? How did they gain such a firm grip on local languages that they were able to convincingly convey abstract religious concepts in them? Here the missionaries were indebted to a small coterie of Armenians who were curious about, if not sympathetic to, their mission and message. Especially in the early years, with no grammar books or dictionaries of spoken languages, missionaries relied heavily on their cultural know-how and linguistic expertise and came to learn about the nuances of Armenian culture through them. This coterie included some of the most learned Armenians of the day who, while shepherding the missionaries into an Armenian social sphere, concurrently held positions as teachers, school principals, writers, and newspaper editors.
Houshamadyan, 2021
When we speak of the renaissance of Western Armenian culture in the 19th century, we usually firs... more When we speak of the renaissance of Western Armenian culture in the 19th century, we usually first mention the era‘s writers, playwrights, and actors whose names are engraved in the long list of the great Armenian intellectual and cultural figures of history.
Jennifer Manoukian‘s article examines one aspect of this cultural reawakening that remains relatively obscure – the Ottoman-Armenian publishing industry. The article focuses specifically on the Dedeyan Brothers publishing house of Smyrna/Izmir, which operated from 1853 to 1892. The Dedeyans published Armenian periodicals, non-fiction (mostly scientific monographs), religious texts, schoolbooks, literary works, and translated literary works. These publications undoubtedly contributed to the development of the cultural and intellectual life of Ottoman Armenians.
https://www.houshamadyan.org/mapottomanempire/vilayet-of-aydinizmir/literature/printing.html
https://bosphorusreview.com/youre-ironing-my-head-shared-western-armenian-and-turkish-idioms
https://www.asymptotejournal.com/special-feature/jennifer-manoukian-on-zareh-vorpouni/, 2020
A little over fifty years ago, a novel was published, tossed aside, and buried, setting into moti... more A little over fifty years ago, a novel was published, tossed aside, and buried, setting into motion a series of could-haves. This novel could have shaken Western Armenian fiction awake and pushed it down a path toward modernity; it could have marched alongside its French literary counterparts, keeping pace with them and sharing in their literary thrills and struggles; and it could have invited its Armenian readers to desacralize their seemingly sacred pasts and pick them apart bit by bit.
This novel is Թեկնածուն, or The Candidate, by Zareh Vorpouni, a French-Armenian writer whose transgressive, experimental novels spurned the insularity of Western Armenian literature. In so doing, he stitched the hybridity of the diasporan condition into the very fabric of his novels like few Armenian writers before or after him. His distinction lies in his integration of mid-twentieth-century French literary trends in an attempt to prompt a metamorphosis of Western Armenian literature and encourage a dramatic cultural shift.
Zareh Vorpouni was a lone ranger. In a corpus that spanned genre and era, he embodied the new, th... more Zareh Vorpouni was a lone ranger. In a corpus that spanned genre and era, he embodied the new, the experimental, and the transgressive in Western Armenian fiction in a way that few writers can, or have cared to, rival. Writing most prolifically in the 1960’s and 1970’s when readers and interest in literature were in decline, Vorpouni’s cultural apotheosis in the eyes of the Armenian diaspora never happened in his lifetime, during which he was read and admired only by a small group of Armenian intellectuals mostly concentrated in France—his home from 1922 until his death in 1980.
An essay extolling the virtues of French Armenian writer Krikor Beledian's "Cinquante ans de litt... more An essay extolling the virtues of French Armenian writer Krikor Beledian's "Cinquante ans de littérature arménienne en France" as a reference text for literary translators from Western Armenian.
"Zareh Vorpouni: In His Own Words." The French-Armenian writer's thoughts on language, Armenian l... more "Zareh Vorpouni: In His Own Words." The French-Armenian writer's thoughts on language, Armenian literature, French literature, solitude, his novel "The Candidate," and his readership from one of his last interview in 1978.
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Dissertation Abstract by Jennifer Manoukian
Scholarly Articles by Jennifer Manoukian
Jennifer Manoukian, “Literary Translation and the Expansion of the Ottoman Armenian Reading Public, 1853-1884,” Book History 25, no. 1 (2022): 128-171.
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315394626-22/search-linguistic-legitimacy-manoukian-jennifer
Born to an Irish-American mother and Armenian-American father in New York, Manoukian did not learn Western Armenian as a mother-tongue, but rather came to it as a university student; thus, she joined a generation of ‘new speakers’ of Western Armenian, who were born and raised with another dominant language in diaspora. Yet, the challenge that she has encountered is that the very variety of Western Armenian spoken by her and the younger generation of speakers is not recognized by the older generation within the speech community. Hence, the questions she poses are: Who is the legitimate speaker of the language and what factors should determine legitimacy? In revitalizing endangered languages, as Manoukian argues, there is a tendency to look to the past for sources of linguistic legitimacy for the past is perceived as ‘authentic’ whereas the present is perceived as ‘adulterated.’ Yet, she problematizes such a perception by arguing that the rise of new speakers in many minority languages, including in Western Armenian, suggests the fact that we need to re-define our old and invented notions of linguistic legitimacy and speech community, for today, as rightly argued by Ofelia Garcia (et. al., 2012), the linguistic community can no longer be perceived as a ‘homogeneous whole’ but rather as a ‘heterogeneous site’ that is ‘fluid,’ ‘hybrid,’ and ‘dynamic.’ Hence, new speakers should, indeed, be perceived as the legitimate owners of the language for attempts to revitalize endangered languages rests in the hands of the younger generation.
Public-Facing Articles by Jennifer Manoukian
How did American missionaries on foreign shores manage to navigate the linguistic diversity within the Ottoman Empire? How did they gain such a firm grip on local languages that they were able to convincingly convey abstract religious concepts in them? Here the missionaries were indebted to a small coterie of Armenians who were curious about, if not sympathetic to, their mission and message. Especially in the early years, with no grammar books or dictionaries of spoken languages, missionaries relied heavily on their cultural know-how and linguistic expertise and came to learn about the nuances of Armenian culture through them. This coterie included some of the most learned Armenians of the day who, while shepherding the missionaries into an Armenian social sphere, concurrently held positions as teachers, school principals, writers, and newspaper editors.
Jennifer Manoukian‘s article examines one aspect of this cultural reawakening that remains relatively obscure – the Ottoman-Armenian publishing industry. The article focuses specifically on the Dedeyan Brothers publishing house of Smyrna/Izmir, which operated from 1853 to 1892. The Dedeyans published Armenian periodicals, non-fiction (mostly scientific monographs), religious texts, schoolbooks, literary works, and translated literary works. These publications undoubtedly contributed to the development of the cultural and intellectual life of Ottoman Armenians.
https://www.houshamadyan.org/mapottomanempire/vilayet-of-aydinizmir/literature/printing.html
This novel is Թեկնածուն, or The Candidate, by Zareh Vorpouni, a French-Armenian writer whose transgressive, experimental novels spurned the insularity of Western Armenian literature. In so doing, he stitched the hybridity of the diasporan condition into the very fabric of his novels like few Armenian writers before or after him. His distinction lies in his integration of mid-twentieth-century French literary trends in an attempt to prompt a metamorphosis of Western Armenian literature and encourage a dramatic cultural shift.
Jennifer Manoukian, “Literary Translation and the Expansion of the Ottoman Armenian Reading Public, 1853-1884,” Book History 25, no. 1 (2022): 128-171.
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315394626-22/search-linguistic-legitimacy-manoukian-jennifer
Born to an Irish-American mother and Armenian-American father in New York, Manoukian did not learn Western Armenian as a mother-tongue, but rather came to it as a university student; thus, she joined a generation of ‘new speakers’ of Western Armenian, who were born and raised with another dominant language in diaspora. Yet, the challenge that she has encountered is that the very variety of Western Armenian spoken by her and the younger generation of speakers is not recognized by the older generation within the speech community. Hence, the questions she poses are: Who is the legitimate speaker of the language and what factors should determine legitimacy? In revitalizing endangered languages, as Manoukian argues, there is a tendency to look to the past for sources of linguistic legitimacy for the past is perceived as ‘authentic’ whereas the present is perceived as ‘adulterated.’ Yet, she problematizes such a perception by arguing that the rise of new speakers in many minority languages, including in Western Armenian, suggests the fact that we need to re-define our old and invented notions of linguistic legitimacy and speech community, for today, as rightly argued by Ofelia Garcia (et. al., 2012), the linguistic community can no longer be perceived as a ‘homogeneous whole’ but rather as a ‘heterogeneous site’ that is ‘fluid,’ ‘hybrid,’ and ‘dynamic.’ Hence, new speakers should, indeed, be perceived as the legitimate owners of the language for attempts to revitalize endangered languages rests in the hands of the younger generation.
How did American missionaries on foreign shores manage to navigate the linguistic diversity within the Ottoman Empire? How did they gain such a firm grip on local languages that they were able to convincingly convey abstract religious concepts in them? Here the missionaries were indebted to a small coterie of Armenians who were curious about, if not sympathetic to, their mission and message. Especially in the early years, with no grammar books or dictionaries of spoken languages, missionaries relied heavily on their cultural know-how and linguistic expertise and came to learn about the nuances of Armenian culture through them. This coterie included some of the most learned Armenians of the day who, while shepherding the missionaries into an Armenian social sphere, concurrently held positions as teachers, school principals, writers, and newspaper editors.
Jennifer Manoukian‘s article examines one aspect of this cultural reawakening that remains relatively obscure – the Ottoman-Armenian publishing industry. The article focuses specifically on the Dedeyan Brothers publishing house of Smyrna/Izmir, which operated from 1853 to 1892. The Dedeyans published Armenian periodicals, non-fiction (mostly scientific monographs), religious texts, schoolbooks, literary works, and translated literary works. These publications undoubtedly contributed to the development of the cultural and intellectual life of Ottoman Armenians.
https://www.houshamadyan.org/mapottomanempire/vilayet-of-aydinizmir/literature/printing.html
This novel is Թեկնածուն, or The Candidate, by Zareh Vorpouni, a French-Armenian writer whose transgressive, experimental novels spurned the insularity of Western Armenian literature. In so doing, he stitched the hybridity of the diasporan condition into the very fabric of his novels like few Armenian writers before or after him. His distinction lies in his integration of mid-twentieth-century French literary trends in an attempt to prompt a metamorphosis of Western Armenian literature and encourage a dramatic cultural shift.
on full display in the poems.
Largely unknown outside France, Armenia and pockets of the Armenian diaspora, examples of Manouchian’s poetry are appearing here for the first time in English translation in celebration of Manouchian’s entry into the Panthéon in 2024.
https://modernpoetryintranslation.com/magazine/salam-to-gaza-focus-on-dissent-and-resistance/
“The Competition,” a short story by the Ottoman Armenian dynamo Zabel Yessayan (1878-c. 1943), is a tale of rivalry between a husband and wife and the debilitating effects of jealousy.
What draws me to this story and to Yessayan’s early work more broadly is her interest in probing the depths of universal human emotions. So often, literature in Western Armenian—a language once used by Armenians in the Ottoman Empire and today by their descendants in diaspora—is moralistic in its approach and national in its orientation. Its characters are Armenian; its settings are Armenian; its preoccupations are Armenian; its message is Armenian.
As readers will see, Yessayan does not indulge in the ethnocentrism or didacticism of her contemporaries. Her work is rare for its time and place in that it strives to lay bare the good, bad and ugly of the human condition rather than to construct and instruct an Armenian national community. In “The Competition,” Yessayan puts the ugly on display, exposing the psychology of jealousy that all of us—no matter our national belonging—are often left to wrestle with in the privacy of our minds.
Conversations of this sort, however, certainly did take place in the private sphere, as we see in these love letters exchanged between two prominent Armenian writers in 1895 Constantinople: Hrand Asadour and Zabel Donelian (more widely known by her pen name Sibyl). At the time, Hrand was the co-editor of Masis, one of the most widely circulated Armenian newspapers in the Ottoman Empire, while Zabel had already earned a reputation for her poetry, fiction, and articles in the Armenian press. Hrand had long been an admirer of Zabel’s work from afar and, in 1892, they began working together on the literary supplement of Masis, giving way to a friendship that slowly blossomed into love.
Written at the very beginning of their romance, these letters allude to a powerful force that kept them apart, an ever-present source of anguish that loomed over them both. The problem was that, by this time, Zabel had been married for more than a decade and had a young daughter, Adriné, to whom she was entirely devoted. The letters show Zabel’s ambivalence toward her love for Hrand given her circumstances; Hrand’s melancholy passion for Zabel’s mind and body; and the hostile social climate the couple was forced to navigate together. But the intimacy of their intellectual friendship and the intensity of their longing for each other is made all the more poignant by these obstacles. The universality of the emotional turmoil they describe also has the pleasant effect of freeing these letters from any sense of time or place, allowing them to be read simply as the expression of two people in love anywhere in the world, past or present.
The precarity of Hrand and Zabel’s affair only lasted until her husband’s death in 1901. The couple married in the same year and later had a daughter, Emma. During their marriage, they continued to work together, including on a celebrated series of Western Armenian textbooks. The couple lived through the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the devastation of Ottoman Armenian intellectual life, nonetheless choosing to remain in the Republic of Turkey after its founding in 1923.
I am indebted to the late Grigor Hakobian for transcribing these letters—written in a kind of Armenian cursive that is notoriously difficult to decipher—and for publishing them, along with more than 40 letters, in a 2001 volume entitled Սիրային նամակներ (Love Letters). I am also grateful to Arthur Hakobian for granting me permission to translate from his late brother’s transcriptions, to Vartan Matiossian for introducing me to this book, and to Daniel Ohanian for his comments on the translation.
The translations are accessible here: http://intranslation.brooklynrail.org/western-armenian/selected-love-letters-by-hrand-asadour-and-zabel-donelian
https://open.spotify.com/episode/0td94LJqpqclgNMrXfjXjc
https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1539127198?app=podcast&at=1000lHKX&ct=linktree_http&i=1000579924309&itscg=30200&itsct=lt_p&ls=1&mt=2
Her memoir of growing up in late 19th century Istanbul, “The Gardens of Silihdar” is reviewed here, and the Hürriyet Daily News spoke to translator Jennifer Manoukian about Yessayan’s mysterious life and exceptional work.